Italian election result confirmed and denied

Further to my post yesterday on the results of the Italian general election, there has been an, umm, interesting development. The official results are in, and Romano Prodi has been confirmed as the winner, by the narrowest of margins. But that's not the interesting bit. The interesting bit is that the incumbent Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, refuses to accept the result and refuses to concede defeat, citing voting irregularities and disputed ballot papers.

Strange. All I can think of when I hear that is: hanging chads. It'll be interesting to see how this develops, and whether Berlusconi actually has something concrete to base his claims on, or whether this is just some sort of last-ditch gambit designed to help him cling to power. From what I've seen of Berlusconi, my money would be on the latter.

BBC News and Reuters have all the details.

Tags:
Italy
politics