ROME, 13 April 2006 — Italy faced weeks of political and economic uncertainty, analysts said, after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi rejected a general election result which handed power to his center-left rival Romano Prodi.

Berlusconi claimed a recount of thousands of disputed ballots — more than the 25,000 margin of Prodi’s victory — in the last gamble of a rollercoaster election, the tightest in living memory.

“What can possibly happen that hasn’t already?” mused Roberto D’Altimonte, a political scientist at Florence University, before answering his own question: “Well, this is Italy, so anything can happen.”

The prospect of a protracted battle over the outcome of the vote threw up the possibility of a lengthy delay in naming the new government and put Prodi’s priority of reviving a moribund economy on the back burner.

“We’re now going to have a legal battle on the recounting of the contested ballots so I expect the uncertainty to continue,” D’Altimonte told AFP.

“It could take weeks, depending on what he (Berlusconi) wants to recount. The contested ballots — 43,000 — or the entirety of the invalid ballots.”

D’Altimonte said a large proportion of the one million ballots declared invalid in the election for the lower house, were considered “spoiled” in the first count by polling monitors for both coalitions, but they could also now be subject to recount.

The rest is made up of the “contested” ballots — on whose validity party monitors could not agree — and blank ballots.

The razor-thin margin of Prodi’s victory is what troubles James Newell, an Italian politics specialist at Salford University.

“It leaves us with a government with little legitimacy,” he said.

“They have a very slim majority in the Senate, and in the chamber (of deputies) they will be exposed to constant attack by the opposition who can claim the support of half the country.”

Political analyst Andrea Vannucci said it would only take one bout of flu to erase the union’s one, or possibly two-seat majority, in the 315-seat upper house.

For that reason, he said, the center-left coalition would likely forego the privilege of retaining the post of Senate speaker, who is not allowed to vote. “It was a polite habit up until about 10 years ago to hand it to the opposition.” Analysts discounted an apparent overture by the 69-year-old prime minister to Prodi about forming a German-style “grand coalition” to share power.

“It’s a good thing for him to say because it makes it seem like he’s the one seeking national harmony,” said D’Altimonte.

“But this is not Germany, this is Italy, and you have to ask where the Refoundation Communists would fit in, can Prodi afford to leave them out? Could Berlusconi work with them?” he asked, echoing the doubts of other commentators.

However, Vannucci said Berlusconi’s brinkmanship was unlikely to derail the new government, and that the prospect of a US-style recount drama was remote in Italy.

“The recount idea is an obvious move by Berlusconi given the closeness of the vote. It’s very unlikely it will change anything, because of the strength of the Italian system. It’s not a Florida-type situation.”

Rome-based political scientist James Walston questioned what might happen if the stalemate continued, particularly given that one of the first duties of the new Parliament will be to elect a new state president.

“The nightmare scenario is that if we don’t have a government by the 18th of May, when President (Carlo Azeglio) Ciampi’s mandate is up, then we don’t have a head of state either,” said Walston.