Italy court confirms Prodi's win

The Supreme Court's confirmation has thus put an end to PM Silvio Berlusconi's five-year grip on power.

Italy's Supreme Court on Wednesday confirmed centre-left leader Romano Prodi's lower house election win, all but ending Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's five-year grip on power.

HT Image

Prodi's Union coalition won 19,002,598 votes in the lower house to 18,977,843 for outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's House of Freedoms coalition, the Corte di Cassazione said.

Official confirmation of the Senate vote, which the centre-left won by a two-seat majority, is still awaited by individual courts of appeal within the coming days.

Italian politics had been in a state of suspended animation for nine days since the election, which provisional results had shown the centre-left winning by a razor-thin margin.

Berlusconi, Italy's richest man, had steadfastly refused to concede defeat, crediting Prodi's narrow poll win to "irregularities," and insisting the supreme court review contested votes.