Overall Prodi victory confirmed
Overall Prodi victory confirmed
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Saturday, 22, Apr 2006 08:56
Romano Prodi is finally confirmed as the overall winner of the Italian general election.
Italy's supreme court has declared Mr Prodi the winner of this month's disputed general election in both the Upper and Lower chambers.
The overseas ballots were rechecked and have now confirmed that Prodi won the Upper House by 158 seats to 156.
After nine days of argument over contested ballot papers, the extremely close election of the Lower House was handed to Mr Prodi by a margin of 24,755 votes – less than 0.1 per cent of the 38 million cast.
Despite the judgement, the ruling Forza Italia party refused to concede that prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's time in power was over.
Mr Berlusconi's bullish stance on "murky aspects" of the election, which some commentators have suggested threatened Italian democracy, has alienated many of his former coalition partners.
Mr Prodi has brushed away such concerns, welcoming the decision of the supreme court.
"Finally this electoral story is over," Mr Prodi said. "After the court ruling, Italians have no further doubts about our victory...now we are working for a strong government and to resolve the problems of Italian society."
He will command a superiority of around 70 seats in Italy's lower house following reforming legislation pushed through by Mr Berlusconi last year.
Critics of Mr Prodi's centre-left Olive Tree coalition believe the victory is pyrrhic, however, because the task of constructing a government is widely expected to be fraught with difficulty.
On the agenda of the former prime minister – who had previously been in power between 1996 and 1998 – are a commitment to reduce both taxes and the national debt.