Berlusconi still has something to say

Silvio Berlusconi has floated the idea of a "Grand Coalition". Picture / Reuters

ROME - Silvio Berlusconi had not been heard from since he was seen guiding his ancient mum into a polling booth and instructing her audibly to "put a cross on the symbol for Forza Italia".

In the wake of this tightest, most nail-biting of Italian elections, the man of torrential eloquence had dried up.

Finally, after 48 hours of silence and seven hours later than first announced, he took the stage in his 16th century Roman headquarters and told the press that, as far as he was concerned, the election had been won by nobody.

"We do not believe," he said at a press conference repeatedly postponed during the day, "that today, as things stand, anyone can claim to have won."

It was not just that the voting was very close. The results, he claimed, displayed "many, many murky aspects".

The fact that an era was passing was underlined by the stunning news, just seven minutes after Berlusconi's defeat became certain, that the most wanted mafioso in Sicily had been arrested. Berlusconi, long tainted by his Mafia links, was on his way, and suddenly the biggest mobster of the lot was in the bag.

The day in fact began in the middle of the previous night. With provisional results pointing to a slim but sure centre-left victory, Romano Prodi and his allies stood up and with most un-Prodi like boldness seized the initiative. The Italian left were not going to let a little thing like a tied Senate and a whisker-thin advantage in the Chamber of Deputies poop their party. At 2.30 on a chilly morning, the road outside Prodi's campaign headquarters in Piazza Santi Apostoli exploded with joy as their leader took the stage and announced that the coalition had won.

But the words were hardly out of his mouth when Paolo Bonaiuti, Berlusconi's spokesman, told reporters a few hundred metres away that Berlusconi's centre-right coalition, the House of Liberties, was contesting the left's announced victory because "we have won the Senate".

As the morning wore on, Bonaiuti was proved wrong.

The last crucial Senate seats to be accounted for were the six given, for the first time ever, to expatriate Italians. Although the idea of giving Italians abroad the vote was dreamed up by Berlusconi's Government in the firm belief that it would work to the right's advantage, four out of the six went to the centre-left. By the slimmest margin, 158 Senate seats to 156, the centre-left had scraped home.

The left and its supporters began ruminating on the close result. In the Chamber of Deputies, thanks to the premium given to the winning group, the majority is 63 seats.

It is in the Senate, with only one seat separating the two sides, that Romano Prodi's problems lurk, because all legislation in Italy must be passed twice by both houses.

For his part, Berlusconi has difficulty accepting that the campaign is really over. At his press conference, after floating the idea of a recount, he thought of something else. How about a Grand Coalition?

"I think that we maybe need to take the example of another European country, perhaps like Germany, to see if there is not a case for unifying our forces and governing in agreement," he suggested.

- INDEPENDENT