Berlusconi battles for power

2006-04-10 07:53

Rome - Italians had a final day of voting on Monday to deliver a verdict on conservative Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire media mogul who failed to jump-start a flat economy in his tenure as the nation's longest-serving premier since World War II.

Trying to end the flamboyant Berlusconi's tenancy in the premier's office was Romano Prodi, an unexciting economics professor and former European Commission president who defeated him for the premiership in 1996.

Polls were not allowed to be published in the two weeks before the vote, but earlier surveys gave a slight edge to Prodi.

Polls on the second day of balloting were scheduled to be opened from 07:00 to 15:00, with exit polls expected immediately afterward and first partial results a few hours later.

After 14 hours of voting on Sunday, 66.5% of the 47 million eligible voters had cast ballots, the Interior Ministry said.

A staunch United States ally, Berlusconi, 69, founded a business empire that expanded to include Italy's main private TV networks, the Milan soccer team, as well as publishing, advertising and insurance interests.

Staunch US ally

He was battling to capture his third premiership with a centre-right bloc - an often squabbling coalition of his Forza Italia party, the former neo-fascist National Alliance, pro-Vatican forces, and the anti-immigrant Northern League.

Prodi, 66, was making his comeback bid with a potentially unwieldy coalition of moderate Christian Democrats, Greens, liberals, former Communists and Communists.

One potential issue - Iraq - was largely deflated before the campaign began, when Berlusconi announced that Italy's troops there would be withdrawn by year's end.

Berlusconi had strongly supported US President George W Bush despite fierce opposition among Italians against the war.

Prodi has said he would bring them home as soon as possible, security conditions permitting.

While Italians were mainly preoccupied by economic worries, the candidates seemed to toss out more insults at each other than comprehensive recipes for turning around the economy.

Critics contended that Berlusconi, instead of helping the economy, used his comfortable majority in Parliament above all to push through laws to protect his business interests and to help him in his years of judicial woes. Berlusconi contends the laws benefit all Italians and that he has been the innocent victim of left-leaning prosecutors.

- AP