Center-left challenger Romano Prodi claimed victory by the narrowest of margins Tuesday, but Premier Silvio Berlusconi's forces demanded a recount in one chamber as Italy's election failed to deliver a clear verdict. "We can govern for five years; the law allows it although we will have to work hard," Prodi told journalists as he arrived Tuesday morning at his downtown Rome headquarters. Hours earlier, Prodi had told supporters that his lead, although razor-thin, was enough to form a government. The outcome of the bitterly contested election hung on Tuesday's count of votes cast by Italians living overseas. Prodi's coalition claimed at least four of the six seats, giving it the necessary margin for victory, but official results hadn't yet been released. Final returns Tuesday showed Prodi winning the lower Chamber of Deputies by one tenth of a percentage point _ 49.8 to 49.7 percent. Under Italian electoral law, 55 percent of seats are awarded to the overall winner regardless of the scale of victory, giving Prodi's forces 340 seats in the 630-member lower house. All eyes were on the Senate, however, which Prodi also needed to win to form a government. The razor-thin margins raised the prospect of a political crisis in which the two claimants might each control a different house of parliament. According to official returns, Berlusconi's conservative allies held a one-seat advantage in the upper Senate, with 155 seats to Prodi's 154. But while the votes cast abroad were being counted, Prodi's coordinator for Italians living abroad, Franco Danieli, told a press conference that the coalition had garnered four of the six seats. "There are conditions to create a government and to govern, even if the country is divided in two," center-left leader Piero Fassino said on a radio program Tuesday. Prodi claimed victory well before the Senate figures were in, saying in the early hours: "Until the very end we were left in suspense, but in the end victory has arrived." "We have won, and now we have to start working to implement our program and unify the country," he told supporters. Prodi's allies conceded after his announcement that results in the Senate were still not complete. But center-left leader Francesco Rutelli was quoted as saying that the center-left was heading toward victory in the Senate as well. Berlusconi's spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, contested the center-left victory claim and called for a vote recount in the lower house, noting that the difference in the Chamber amounted to less than 25,000 votes. "Such a narrow difference demands that there be a careful verification of the vote count," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. --SP 13 08 Local Time 10 08 GMT
