BerlusGONEi?

Prodi wins Italy's election - exit polls
Guardian

Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, looks to have narrowly lost the country's general election to a leftwing coalition led by the former European commission president Romano Prodi, according to exit polls released immediately after voting ended today. Two surveys said Mr Prodi's coalition had gathered between 50% and 54% of the vote in both the upper and lower chambers of parliament, against 45% to 49% for Mr Berlusconi's centre-right grouping. The polls, conducted by the Nexus group and released 45 minutes apart, had an estimated 2% margin of error either way.

A separate telephone survey of 10,000 voters broadcast on Sky TG24 television gave a similar picture, estimating Mr Prodi's coalition had won 52% of the vote against Mr Berlusconi's 47%. This would give the challenger at least 340 seats in the 630-member lower house, the chamber of deputies, against 277 or more for the incumbent.

The polls were released seconds after voting in the general election, which began on Sunday and ended at 3pm (1400 BST) today, was finished. Turnout was initially estimated at around 85%, Italy's interior ministry said.

Mr Berlusconi, the 69-year-old media tycoon whose five years in office have been dogged by allegations of corruption and a stuttering national economy, consistently lagged in opinion polls before they were halted a fortnight before the vote, a provision under Italian electoral law.

The challenger's backers were jubilant following the exit polls. Italy has been waiting for five years, and deserves this moment," said Dario Franceschini, coordinator of the centre-left Daisy party, a major partner in Mr Prodi's coalition.

"If the vote confirms these first exit polls, a strong victory awaits us."

The election campaign has been a bitter one, marked by bouts of bickering between the two candidates, notably over Italy's stagnant economic growth. Mr Berlusconi also made a last-gasp attempt to appeal to his core vote in the final weeks by promising to abolish council tax and labelling Prodi supporters "dickheads".

John Hooper, the Guardian's correspondent in Rome, said the push appeared to have backfired given that Berlusconi's vote in the exit polls was no higher than that predicted a fortnight before.

"What we clearly have on our hands is a result very much consistent with what the various polls during the campaign were throwing up," he said.

"What that represents more than anything else is a defeat for the shock tactics that Mr Berlusconi tried on the electorate during the last stages [of the campaign]. It hasn't worked, it's blown up in his face."

Italy's longest serving prime minister since the second world war, Mr Berlusconi's rightwing coalition comprises his own Forza Italia party, the former neo-fascist National Alliance, pro-Vatican groups and the anti-immigrant Northern League.

Mr Prodi, 66, who defeated Mr Berlusconi in Italy's 1996 election before he headed to Brussels, meanwhile heads a potentially unwieldy alliance of Christian Democrats, liberals, greens and communists.

Mr Berlusconi's critics charge that he has spent too much of his time in power pushing through laws to help his business interests and protect him from a series of legal inquiries into his business dealings, including one measure granting him and state officials immunity from prosecution, later declared unconstitutional.

He has been variously accused of embezzlement, tax fraud and false accounting, and attempting to bribe a judge.

Italy's richest man with an estimated worth of around £7bn, Mr Berlusconi contends he is being unfairly targeted by a leftwing judiciary and has labelled Mr Prodi a front man for communists.

His business empire includes Italy's main private television networks, AC Milan football club and a series of publishing, advertising and insurance interests. Shares in Mediaset, the Italy's leading private television network, controlled by the prime minister, fell almost 2% after the exit polls were released.

Mr Prodi, in contrast, who has pledged to boost the economy by slashing business taxes, has deliberately juxtaposed his reputation for seriousness and modest living with Berlusconi's flamboyance and wealth.

One potential issue - that of Italian troops in Iraq - was largely defused shortly before the election campaign began, when Mr Berlusconi announced that the country's forces would be withdrawn before the end of the year. [Partridge: My parents were in Italy last week and they brought me back some election literature from Prodi's 'Olive Coalition' but I couldn't find any mention of Iraq at all!]

While he has close ties with Washington, Mr Berlusconi's overseas reputation has suffered both from the corruption allegations and gaffes such as comparing a German MEP to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

Apperantly there was suppose to be an attack on election day that was thwarted.

Where'd you hear that?

Anyway, looks like I may have spoke too soon, the headline for this story has just changed to:

Italian election too close to call
Guardian

The result of Italy's general election remained too close to call tonight after projections showed that the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, could yet retain control of both houses of parliament.Projections based on 95% of pollster Nexus' voting sampling gave Mr Berlusconi's alliance 158 seats in the senate compared to 151 for the leftwing coalition led by former European commission president Romano Prodi.

However, the majority was not assured because of a margin of error of one to three percentage points, and six seats chosen by Italians voting abroad unaccounted for in the projections.

Meanwhile, projections based on 44% of the votes gave Mr Berlusconi's forces 49.9% of the chamber compared to 49.6% for Mr Prodi's alliance.Initial exit polls released immediately after voting ended today suggested that Mr Prodi had narrowly won the vote. Two surveys said Mr Prodi's coalition had gathered between 50% and 54% of the vote in both the upper and lower chambers of parliament, against 45% to 49% for Mr Berlusconi's centre-right grouping. The polls had an estimated 2% margin of error either way.

A separate telephone survey of 10,000 voters broadcast on Sky TG24 television gave a similar picture, estimating Mr Prodi's coalition had won 52% of the vote against Mr Berlusconi's 47%. This would give the challenger at least 340 seats in the 630-member lower house, the chamber of deputies, against 277 or more for the incumbent.

[I wonder if Diebold are active in Italy?]