Italy's election too close to call -- sound familiar????

by **Moddey Screbbagh** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:50 pm

neocons poised to take another election? early exit polls suggested Berlusconi would lose....now this: Early Results Show Italian Election Is Too Close to Call By IAN FISHER ROME, April 10 — Italy's elections narrowed this evening to a race too close to call, as projections showed Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi winning the upper chamber of parliament and in a tight race for the lower chamber. Full results were not expected until late into the night, and possibly not until Tuesday, and neither Mr. Berlusconi nor his opponent, former Prime Minister Romano Prodi, made any public statements. The results boded several possibilities: Mr. Berlusconi could win one chamber, leaving neither side with a convincing victory and Italy without a prime minister. It also seemed possible that Mr. Prodi, 66, a low-key economist, could win in both houses but with such a small margin that he would oversee a weak and not durable government. The results also put on hold the main question in these hard-fought and unusually bitter elections: Whether today would mark the end of the political career for Mr. Berlusconi, the media billionaire who moved on to dominate Italian politics for the last five years as prime minister. Left-leaning voters and many other Italians hurt by a bad economy and weary of Mr. Berlusconi's singular personality hoped so. "It's the end of the season for the culture of Berlusconi's anti-politics," said Massimo D'Alema, himself a former prime minister and a leader of Democrats of the Left party. "The country can return to politics." His comments, however, came shortly after the voting ended, when surveys of voters leaving the polls suggested that Mr. Prodi's center-left coalition would prevail. Mr. Berlusconi's supporters said that the fight was not yet lost until the final ballots were counted, adding even if his coalition lost, his Forza Italia party still appeared to win more votes than any other. Antonio Tajani, a member of the European parliament for Forza Italia, said: "Forza Italia remains the No. 1 party in this country. And that fact confirms Berlusconi." Rising from humble beginnings in the northern city of Milan, Mr. Berlusconi built a fortune in real estate, television, publishing and soccer then convinced many Italians that he could duplicate that success in politics. He held the prime minister's post briefly in 1994, then lost to Mr. Prodi in 1996. In 2001, he won the job again, holding onto office longer than any other prime minister since World War II. But many Italians, frustrated by little economic growth, complained that he did not live up to his grand promises. He seemed on one hand the latest in a line of once-prominent leaders, from George W. Bush to Gerhard Shroeder of Germany to Tony Blair of Britain — whose popularity flagged heavily. But many too were upset by unending allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest with his vast business empire and a series of gaffes — from comparing himself to Christ and comparing a European parliamentarian to a Nazi prison guard — they felt embarrassed Italy. The election was thus full of emotion, reflected in turnout. Of Italy's 47 million voters, 84.1 percent turned out to vote, compared to 81.7 in 2001, when Mr. Berlusconi was first elected. While the results were still far from complete, Mr. Berlusconi appeared to win only two regions in poorer south, Puglia and Sicily, while he won nearly every one in 2001. If Mr. Prodi indeed does win, he would not be expected to form a government for a month. And he would do so with a coalition, that whatever the results, many experts say is inherently unstable, with seven parties ranging from communists to centrist Roman Catholics. Stefano Folli, a political commentator for the economic daily Il Sole 24 Ore, said that the results show that Italy is divided, with the major regions of the North against Mr. Prodi. As such, he said: "It's going to be difficult to mask the contradictions within the majority," which are likely to be more exasperated by the demands of the individual parties. "It's going to be a delicate situation that Mr. Prodi is going to have to confront day by day and that is going to be reflected on his ability to carry out his program," he said. Mr. Prodi says that he has made his allies sign onto a 289-page platform that would allow govern in unity and for five full years. In office, he has pledged a foreign policy that looks more toward Europe and away from Mr. Berlusconi's emphasis on his alliance with the United States. At home, he has pledged a package of economic reforms that he says will restart Italy's growth, including a cut on labor taxes but increases on capital gains and a reintroduction of the inheritance tax. He has also pledged to cut Italy's public debt, the world's third highest. NYT <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/world/europe/10cnd-italy.html?hp&ex=1144728000&en=4558d682e2eff5a6&ei=5094&partner=homepage">www.nytimes.com/2006/04/1...r=homepage</a>

by **BannedfromDU** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:58 pm

Electronic voting comes to Italy (as do conspiracy theories) By Eric Sylvers International Herald Tribune WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2006 MILAN When Lucio Stanca, the minister of innovation and technology, began preparing Italy for electronic vote counting a few years ago, there were some naysayers. But test runs for European Parliament elections in 2004 and Italian regional elections in 2005 silenced the critics - temporarily. With the arrival of the April 9 and 10 general elections, the dress rehearsals are over. Electronic vote tabulating will move beyond the test phase in Italy for the first time: It will be used in four of the nation's 20 regions and will affect a fifth of the population. Detractors worry that mischief will mar the count, especially if there is a close race in any of the four regions, which have many undecided voters. Silvio Berlusconi, who has been prime minister for five years, is running against Romani Prodi, a former president of the European Commission who heads a vast coalition of center-left parties. Prodi has maintained a lead in opinion surveys but Berlusconi can never be counted out. Some of Berlusconi's critics have seized on the electronic voting issue as a chance to confront the prime minister. "You can't play with the instruments of democracy," said Pino Sgobio, a leader of the Italian Communist Party. In an interview with news agencies last week, he asked: "What kind of telephone line will be used to transfer the data to the Interior Ministry and who will chose the people in charge of sending that data and based on what criteria?" -------------------- But the critics said such a development could lead to a crisis of the type that shut down Florida after the U.S. presidential election in 2000. Critics also pointed out that the son of a cabinet minister is a partner in a company that was hired as a consultant by the firm running the electronic procedure. Issues of conflict of interest have often hovered over Berlusconi, who controls 90 percent of the Italian television market. --------------- <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/04/news/rome.php">www.iht.com/articles/2006...s/rome.php</a>

Italy's election too close to call -- sound familiar????

Italy's election too close to call -- sound familiar????

Re: Italy's election too close to call -- sound familiar????

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