Polls put Berlusconi ahead in Italian elections

Exit polls put Silvio Berlusconi narrowly in the lead for his attempt to become Italy’s premier for a third time today.

The polls on Sky TV showed Mr Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition leading with 42% in the lower house, compared with 40% for his main opponent, the centre-left leader Walter Veltroni.

In the Senate, Mr Berlusconi was leading 42.5% compared with Mr Veltroni’s 39.5%.

The lead for Mr Berlusconi, who was heavily favoured for months, was within the 2% margin of error. In past elections, Italian exit polls have often proved unreliable – including two years ago when they showed Romano Prodi with a five-point lead. He eventually won by just 24,000 votes.

Under Italy’s much-criticised election law, a party only needs a relative majority in the lower house – even just a one-vote lead – to win bonus seats securing full control of the chamber.

The picture in the Senate will not become clear until results are shown from Italy’s 20 regions, as seats are apportioned according to region and not based on national results reflected in the exit polls.

However early, the exit polls appeared to back pre-election surveys that showed Mr Veltroni narrowing the gap. Mr Veltroni’s Democratic Party held a slight edge over Mr Berlusconi’s Freedom People, but the balance was swinging in Mr Berlusconi’s favour because the allied Northern League had a strong showing.

A sense of unease hung over the two days of voting, with Italians pessimistic that the ruling class, which has been dominated for years by the same key figures, can offer much chance of change.

Turnout was 3% behind the last national vote in 2006 – 82% compared with 85%, according to preliminary data from the Interior Ministry.

The elections decide 945 parliamentary seats, 630 of those in the lower house.

A discredited election law adopted in 2005 and used in one previous national election has made it harder to achieve a solid majority in the upper house, or Senate, creating volatility.

Whoever wins will face Italy’s perpetual dilemma – improving the economy, the world’s seventh largest. It has underperformed the rest of the euro zone for years.

Signs of decline abound, from piles of uncollected rubbish in Naples, to a buffalo mozzarella heath scare that has hurt exports and hit one of the country’s culinary treasures, to the faltering sale of the state airline Alitalia.

Italians increasingly blame the governing class for the failure to solve the nation’s problems.