Italy's election

Grasping for victory

Italy goes to the polls

THE main candidates in Italy's general election, which begins on Sunday April 13th, both spent the final hours of the campaign trying urgently to dispel the idea that they would do a deal after the ballot. Silvio Berlusconi and Walter Veltroni are uneasily aware that they could top the poll, yet be unable to govern Italy alone. A messy electoral law, introduced in 2005 when Mr Berlusconi was prime minister, applies different rules to each of the two houses of parliament. These work in such a way that it is quite conceivable that a party could triumph in the Chamber of Deputies, yet be left with little or no majority in the Senate.

Earlier this week, Mr Berlusconi said that his conservative People of Freedom movement needed an edge of at least 20 seats in the upper house, which has 315 elected members. Earlier projections had suggested he would do well to get half that number. Every vote for the People of Freedom, or for Mr Veltroni's centre-left Democratic Party, will count. Yet the prospect of a hung parliament makes it more likely the two big parties will be forced into a post-electoral pact, or even a left-right “grand coalition”, to ensure the country is governable after the ballot.

The leading candidates seemed to be preparing for this at the start of the campaign, both sounding oddly conciliatory. Only recently do they appear to have woken up to the risk that floating voters might conclude that opting for one side was much the same as opting for the other, and abstain. In a webcast for the site of Corriere della Sera, a daily newspaper, Mr Veltroni denied that he was anticipating any sort of broad-based government. “I want to say it in capital letters”, he said. “Whoever gets the majority will govern”.

Mr Berlusconi also strove to put as much distance as possible between himself and his rival. “At the start, I gave him a certain credit”, he admitted in an interview with La Stampa. “But then he took back everything he had said”.

By aiming the spotlight at each other, the main contenders also succeeded in diverting attention from two smaller parties whose role may be crucial. The centre-right Union of Christian and Centre Democrats and the Rainbow Left, an alliance of Greens and Marxists, both have enough support to rob the two bigger movements of vital seats in the Senate.

In Lazio, the area around Rome and one of the five regions where the result is highly uncertain, Mr Berlusconi faces another problem—a far-right splinter group that could drain crucial votes from his alliance. He did little to bolster his position with a rally at the Colosseum on Thursday.

Just a few thousand supporters turned out, and Mr Berlusconi made what appeared to be a serious error, mocking a local soccer hero. Francesco Totti, AS Roma’s captain, had said he would vote for the centre-left candidate, Francesco Rutelli, in the mayoral ballot that is taking place at the same time as the general election. Mr Berlusconi said it showed he was “off his head”.

It was the latest in a string of slips that hinted at anxiety in the Berlusconi camp. Under Italian law, no polls can be published in the final two weeks of campaigning. The last poll published before the final fortnight showed that Mr Berlusconi was comfortably ahead, by between five and nine percentage points. That was little different from the situation at the beginning of the race.

But on Thursday Mr Veltroni attracted a crowd of tens of thousands in Milan, a Berlusconi stronghold. The centre-left leader's biggest handicap is that he is lumbered with the unpopularity of the outgoing, centre-left government of Romano Prodi and its tax and economic policies. But the more Mr Prodi's memory fades, the greater the willingness of voters to give his replacement a chance. Mr Berlusconi promised a “surprise” in the dying hours of the race. Mr Veltroni is hoping the real surprise comes after the polls close on Monday.