Italy's main centre-left party lost some 3.5 million votes, which represents about 30 per cent of its supporters, compared with the last elections in 2008.
Thanks to Italy’s convoluted electoral system, the centre-left alliance will have a majority in the lower house, benefiting from bonus seats given to the winning coalition which just scraped ahead of Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right, but will fall well short of a majority in the Senate.
Mr Bersani laid claim to the “responsibility” of trying to form a government and offering to his opponents in the next parliament the bare bones of a programme based on institutional reforms and an easing of austerity policies. “I am not one to abandon the ship”, he said, ruling out his resignation. Weeks of uncertainty and intense manoeuvring lie ahead. The new parliament will not convene until March 15 and Mario Monti, whose centrist alliance flopped in the elections, will remain caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed, perhaps by April.
Barring the unlikely appointment of another interim technocratic government, that leaves the Democrats with the option of trying to form a minority administration with the support of the other parties.
Common ground between the Democrats and the Five Star Movement could be found in changing the unpopular electoral system, cutting the size and costs of parliament, anti-corruption and conflict of interests legislation, and moves to ease the pain of austerity – points that Mr Bersani outlined. Whether a minority government could survive even a year is open to doubt, however.
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