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Italy votes as economy stumbles and instability looms
2008-04-13
Italians voted Sunday in ill-tempered elections that could return conservative billionaire Silvio Berlusconi to power for a third time against the backdrop of a stumbling economy and chronic political instability. A general malaise was reflected in the last opinion surveys that showed one-third of Italy's 47 million voters undecided between Berlusconi, new centre-left leader Walter Veltroni and a host of other candidates. "There's no change in this country," complained one voter at a Rome polling station who, like many others, voiced frustration at the choices on offer for pulling Italy out of the political and economic doldrums. More than half of Italians surveyed two weeks ago -- 51.4 percent, way up from 36 percent a year ago -- felt their personal economic situation had worsened. The economy grew just 1.5 percent last year, and the outlook for 2008 is bleaker still at 0.6 percent. The early election was called after the centre-left government of Romano Prodi collapsed in January following a tumultuous 20 months in power. Dramatising the mood of an electorate fed up with the status quo in Italy, which has seen 62 governments come and go in as many years, one voter tore up and ate his ballot instead of casting it in the southern town of Sorrento, the ANSA news agency reported. "I knew this would get me into trouble, but I thought it was important to do it," said Ciro D'Esposito, 41, who was detained for questioning after the incident. "What future are we preparing for our children? Who should I have voted for? Something has to change." Three other voters were arrested for trying to photograph their completed ballots in violation of a new law punishable by up to six months in jail, ANSA reported. The ban is aimed at thwarting vote-buying by organised crime operatives who demand photographic proof from the voting booth. As polls closed for the day at 10:00 pm (2000 GMT), turnout stood at nearly 63 percent, the interior ministry said. The figure, down almost four percentage points from the same juncture two years ago with eight more hours of balloting to come on Monday, may reflect the voters' disillusionment. Final turnout figures have regularly topped 80 percent in Italy's general elections. Veltroni, 52, urged voters to "turn the page" on the older generation represented by Berlusconi, who for his part cast his rival as a communist relic. Hoping to avoid the sort of unwieldy coalition that Prodi led to victory by a handful of votes in 2006, Veltroni, a former Marxist, spurned the far left as well as the centre when he set up his new American-style Democratic Party last year. Berlusconi, a self-made billionaire at the head of a vast media empire who goes by the nickname Il Cavaliere (the knight), enjoyed a double-digit lead over Veltroni, Rome's former mayor, as campaigning began in February. But two weeks ago, the last polls allowed ahead of the balloting gave two-time past premier Berlusconi an edge of six or seven percent. As the race tightened, chances grew that Berlusconi may fail to secure a viable majority in the Senate -- or even fall short in the upper house -- thanks to Italy's most recent electoral law. If that happens, the media magnate will have himself to blame, since he was behind the legislation passed hurriedly ahead of the 2006 vote won by Prodi. The rules allot Senate seats on a regional basis, which can lead to skewed results on the national level, since the winning list in each region automatically gets 55 percent of that region's seats while the runners-up split the rest. Observers said the legislation was a deliberate bid to limit Prodi's expected victory in the 2006 polls. The possibility of a hung parliament led centrist candidate Pier Ferdinando Casini, head of the Union of Christian Democrats (UDC), to suggest that he take up the premiership to become a referee between the two large blocs. Polling stations were to reopen on Monday at 7:00 am. Exit polls and preliminary results are expected soon after polls close at 3:00 pm (1300 GMT) on Monday, though the interior ministry said last week that vote-counting would be slower than usual because of stepped-up scrutiny.
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