Too Close To Call

For many weeks the polls and the pundits have been saying that the Italian elections were more or less a formality. Incumbent Silvio Berlusconi, the leader of the center-right government was said to be doomed to challenger Romano Prodi.

As soon as the voting closed earlier today, the pundits were out again, declaring that they had been right all along, Prodi was in by a landslide.

Well maybe not.

Pollster Nexus said with 95 percent of the vote in the Senate counted, Berlusconi was projected to take 158 seats to the centre-left's 151. The margin of error for the sample was between 1 and 3 percentage points.

The current count in the Chamber of Deputies is also too close to call. But current projections based on 44 percent of the vote gave Berlusconi's centre-right alliance a wafer-thin 49.9 percent to 49.6 percent edge over challenger Romano Prodi in the lower house.

Prodi postponed a news conference after the latest projections were released.

The Senate and lower chamber of parliament have equal powers, and any coalition would have to control both in order to form a government. Berlusconi and Prodi have said new elections should be called if neither side controls both houses.