Exit polls yesterday said Italian voters have ousted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi after an acrimonious election campaign, ending his flamboyant five-year reign and handing victory to a center-left coalition led by Romano Prodi.
"We're still very cautious, but if these indications are confirmed that would mean that Italy had decided to turn the page and begin a new era," said a spokesman at Prodi's campaign headquarters.
A Nexus poll for state broadcaster RAI gave Prodi's multi-party coalition -- which includes Communists as well as Catholics and liberals -- a majority in both houses of parliament.
It showed the center-left bloc had between 50 percent and 54 percent of the vote for both the lower Chamber of Deputies and upper house Senate against 45 percent to 49 percent to Berlusconi's House of Freedoms coalition.
The exit polls were released within minutes of the close of voting at 3pm after a two-day general election.
Senator Paolo Guzzanti of Berlusconi's Forza Italia party said: "Our coalition has lost the elections. We expected something like this because we've lost every [local] election since 2001."
Berlusconi made no immediate comment, although the exit polls forecast a collapse of the Forza Italia vote, giving it between 20 percent and 23 percent of the poll, as against the 29.4 percent it took when Berlusconi swept to power.
"The exit polls are unfavorable, but we are remaining very cautious," Forza Italia campaign analyst Denis Verdini said. "What's interesting for us is that the turnout figure is above 83 percent, which is very good for us. One vote could make all the difference in the Chamber of Deputies."
Prodi -- a 66-year-old economist who unseated Berlusconi in 1996 -- earlier said he was "confident, very confident," of maintaining his hex on the media magnate.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS