Prodi moving closer to becoming Italian premier

Romano Prodi moved a step closer to becoming the next Italian premier today when the Interior Ministry sharply lowered the number of contested ballots in the closely fought election, boosting the likelihood that his narrow victory will stand.

As judges were still counting contested ballots and Italians awaited the final word, Prodi reiterated his confidence, while Premier Silvio Berlusconi still refused to concede.

“The match is over,” said centre-left leader Prodi, speaking from Bologna where he was spending Easter weekend. “Now let’s move on.”

Berlusconi said he had not spoken to Prodi and indicated he had no intention of conceding.

“We carry on, we’ll resist,” he told a small group of supporters gathered outside his residence.

In a letter to be published Saturday in Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Berlusconi insisted the situation was stalled.

“At least on the basis of the popular vote, there’s no winner and no loser,” Italian news agencies quoted the letter as saying.

Prodi’s office also announced that he has received calls of congratulations from Tony Blair, German chancellor Angela Merkeland and Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Italy has been mired in political uncertainty since millions of citizens cast ballots in April 9-10 elections. Prodi’s centre-left won a razor-thin majority in both houses of parliament, but Berlusconi alleged irregularities and demanding thorough checks.

On Friday, the Interior Ministry announced that the contested ballots were only about 5,200 – compared to the over 80,000 previously indicated – dashing Berlusconi’s hopes of retaining power.

The new figures were not enough for the premier’s conservatives to reverse the electoral result, even with a gap as narrow as the one dividing the two coalitions.

The Interior Ministry explained the confusion by saying that null or blank ballots had been lumped in by mistake with the contested ballots, which are those where the voting intentions are not immediately clear. It stressed in a statement the data were provisional.

But centre-left leaders accused the government of keeping the country in a state of uncertainty.

“The masquerade of Berlusconi and Forza Italia has finally been revealed by the Interior Ministry,” said a statement by the Democrats of the Left, the largest party supporting Prodi.

The statement accused Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party of mounting a “false” campaign.

Berlusconi, who has made few comments since the close of the polls on Monday afternoon, has said the routine count of contested ballots was not enough. Instead, he has demanded a check of 1.1 million annulled ballots and of voting reports from virtually every polling station in Italy.

The premier has also alleged irregularities in the vote of Italians abroad, which proved key in swinging the Senate. The vote of Italians abroad was a first in elections here, and its result came as a bitter surprise for the conservatives, who had expected to garner most of it.

The minister for Italians abroad, Mirko Tremaglia, called for a new vote today, saying that some 228,000 expatriate voters – about 10% of the total- had not received the electoral material in time.

By law, only ballots that are contested can be checked by the judges. All other complaints regarding blank, null or otherwise irregular ballots must be taken up by parliamentary commissions set up by the new parliament.

Once checks on the contested ballots are completed, a top Italian court, the Court of Cassation, certifies the election result. It was not clear when the court’s confirmation would come.

As Prodi kept receiving calls of congratulations from European leaders, his allies urged Berlusconi to accept the electoral defeat.

“Let those who won be put in the position to govern,” said Francesco Rutelli, who ran for premier and lost to Berlusconi in 2001.

Even once the results are confirmed, it could still be weeks before Prodi takes office.

It is up the president to give him a mandate to form a government. However, the president’s term ends in mid-May, and the current president, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, has said he would leave the decision up to his successor. Parliament has until May 13 to elect a new president.