News on Top Italy's parliamentary elections have ended in stalemate and the possibility of a hung parliament.
With all domestic votes counted, Pier Luigi Bersani's
centre-left bloc has narrowly beaten ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi in the
lower house but has failed to secure a majority in the Senate.Control of both houses is needed to govern and a Berlusconi official said the election was "too close to call".
A protest movement led by comedian Beppe Grillo won a quarter of the vote.
The outcome of the election, which comes amid a deep recession and tough austerity measures, was so close that the margin of victory given in interior ministry figures was less than 1% in both houses of parliament.
The interior ministry in Rome is where the numbers are being crunched in this election.
As the statistics poured in from constituencies down the length of Italy journalists peered at screens that predicted possible political paralysis.
The graphs showed the centre-left's votes in blue, and Silvio Berlusconi's in gold.
And you could quickly see that he had struck electoral gold in Lombardy, which boasts a huge cache of Senate seats.
With the balance of forces playing out as they are, it is hard to see a stable government emerging quickly and
easily, if at all.
Many analysts talk now of the possibility of fresh elections soon in a quest for a more decisive result.
As the statistics poured in from constituencies down the length of Italy journalists peered at screens that predicted possible political paralysis.
The graphs showed the centre-left's votes in blue, and Silvio Berlusconi's in gold.
And you could quickly see that he had struck electoral gold in Lombardy, which boasts a huge cache of Senate seats.
With the balance of forces playing out as they are, it is hard to see a stable government emerging quickly and
easily, if at all.
Many analysts talk now of the possibility of fresh elections soon in a quest for a more decisive result.
"It is clear to everyone that a
very delicate situation is emerging for the country," said centre-left
leader Pier Luigi Bersani as the last of the votes were being counted.
Angelino Alfano, secretary of former Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, said the result was
"extraordinary", and he urged the interior ministry to wait before
declaring a final result.The interior ministry figures were not official, he argued, and were "inevitably subject to a margin of error".
With returns from all polling stations processed, the interior ministry figures gave Mr Bersani's centre-left bloc 29.54% of the vote for the lower house (Chamber of Deputies), barely ahead of the 29.18% polled by Mr Berlusconi's bloc.
Mr Alfano said the result was "too close to call" given the tight margin between the two blocs.
Votes cast outside Italy are still to be collected.
Mr Bersani also won the national vote for the Senate, but was unable to secure the 158 seats required for a majority.
As bonus seats are distributed in the upper house according to regional votes, Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right bloc was expected to emerge with a higher number of seats.
Continue reading the main story
Italy's knife-edge result
Chamber of Deputies (lower house):- Pier Luigi Bersani's centre-left Democratic Party-led bloc: 29.54% of the vote
- Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Freedom Party-led bloc: 29.18%
- Beppe Grillo's anti-austerity Five Star Movement: 25.55%
- Mario Monti's Civic Choice movement: 10.56%
- Neither of the two biggest parties and their allies thought to be close to the 158 seats needed to have a working majority
- Latest figures show the Democratic Party bloc winning about 113 seats (31.63% of the vote)
- The Freedom Party bloc to win 116 seats (30.72% of the vote)
- Five Star Movement to win 54 seats (23.79%)
- Civic Choice 18 seats (9.13%)
Mr Berlusconi was heading for
victory in three of the four big regions - Lombardy in the north,
Campania in the centre, and Sicily in the south.
'War of generations'
Initial exit polls on Monday afternoon gave Mr Bersani's bloc a
clear victory, prompting the Milan stock market to soar by nearly 4%. But as the close result became clear the markets fell back. In New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.55% and shares in Tokyo opened sharply lower.
The apparent split between left and right in the eurozone's third largest economy is likely to cause great anxiety among leaders in other EU member states.
Mr Berlusconi, 76, left office in November 2011, facing claims of economic mismanagement as the eurozone struggled to contain Italy's debt crisis.
Italians have had more than a year of technocratic government under Mario Monti. But his attempts to reduce spending caused widespread public resentment and his decision to head a centrist list in the parliamentary elections attracted little more than 10% of the vote.
"Some supposed we'd get a slightly better result but I am very satisfied, we are very satisfied," he said.
In a surge in support, Beppe Grillo's anti-austerity Five Star Movement attracted 25.54% of the vote.
Correspondents say this was an extraordinary success for the Genoese comic, whose tours around the country throughout the election campaign - hurling insults against a discredited political class - resulted in his party performing well in both chambers.
"We've started a war of generations," Mr Grillo said in an audio statement on his website which taunted the leaders of the mainstream parties.
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