MILAN (AP) — Mario Monti handed in his resignation to Italy's president in Rome on Friday, bringing to a close his "difficult but fascinating" 13-month technical government and preparing the country for national elections.

With the short trip to the president's office after bidding a farewell to foreign diplomats and then his Cabinet, Monti kept his pledge to step down as soon as Parliament approved a budget law.

President Giorgio Napolitano, who tapped Monti in November 2011 to draft reforms to shield Italy from the continent's debt crisis, asked Monti to stay on as head of a caretaker government until the national vote, expected in February.

Napolitano will meet with leaders of Italian parties Saturday morning before dissolving Parliament.

The question facing Italy, the eurozone's third-largest economy and with the second-largest debt as a proportion of GDP, is if the vote will mark a return to politics as usual, or if the government of technocrats succeeded in some measure in preparing the way to continue the path of reforms and sacrifices.

Monti is expected to announce Sunday whether he will run to head a political government — backed by a collection of small centrist parties and movements, and perhaps even Silvio Berlusconi.

Berlusconi has been toying with a return to electoral politics — after first pulling support in Parliament for Monti's government then inviting him to run under a conservative banner. The leader of the center-left, Pier Luigi Bersani, is among those critical of a Monti candidacy, saying that parties built around personalities "is not good for Italy."

A survey by the Demopolis institute for La7 private TV aired on Friday showed that two-thirds of Italians believe the Monti government had succeeded in restoring credibility to Italy and more than half said it had made progress in the fight against tax evasion.

On the minus side, a huge majority of 80 percent, however, criticized his government's restoration of a tax on primary residences. The survey polled 1,040 Italians.

In what was his last official public act as premier, Monti told foreign diplomats in Rome Friday that his year-old technical government had rendered the country "more trustworthy."

He called his tenure "difficult but fascinating." Continued...