Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Friday said he would take some time to reflect following a day-long marathon of consultations with political parties to find sufficient consensus for forming the new government.

Napolitano decided to personally take over efforts after the leader of center-left Democratic Party (PD) Pier Luigi Bersani, whose coalition came first in last month's inconclusive election, failed to achieve the necessary support to receive parliament's confidence.

After the last talks with Napolitano, Deputy Secretary of PD Enrico Letta said that longstanding struggles between the PD and its main opponent, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right People of Freedom (PdL), make a broad coalition between the two main forces in parliament an "impossible solution."

At the same time, the center-left coalition has received too many disappointing "no" from other parties on its "program of change" centered on economic, social and moral reforms to improve the chances of crisis-plagued Italians, he added.

As a consequence, Letta stressed, there was nothing else to do that confirming the PD's "full confidence and gratitude for Napolitano, ensuring our responsible support for the decisions that he will take."

Bersani spent the last week consulting with political forces and social partners to try to find a solution to the longstanding impasse.

However, after refusing to collaborate with the Berlusconi alliance, he neither managed to win support of Beppe Grillo's anti-establishment Five-Star Movement (M5S), which holds the balance of power in parliament.

According to observers, Napolitano may decide to still give the mandate to Bersani, who would try to form a "minority government" supported by non-aligned senators on a case-by-case basis, or opt for a so-called "government of the president" led by an authoritative figure.

Napolitano has insisted on the need of a government in the "fullness of its powers," but early elections are looming after the escalation of problems that have highlighted how hard it will be for any new prime minister to gain parliamentary support.

The forthcoming election of a successor of Napolitano, whose seven-year term ends in May, adds to pressure, as the Italian president is not allowed to dissolve parliament during the final six months of his mandate.