Italy last night stood poised on the brink of a constitutional crisis following a cliffhanger general election which has apparently failed to produce a clear winner, writes Paddy Agnew in Rome.
With the count going on through the night, initial results pointed to a de facto draw between the centre-right House of Freedom coalition led by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and the centre-left Union coalition led by former European Commission president Romano Prodi.
At the end of a desperately tight contest, the centre-left is set to win control of the chamber of deputies while the centre-right has won a majority in the senate. Given that both chambers have equal legislative powers, the result has produced an unprecedented stalemate since a would-be government needs to control both houses in order to legislate.
Exit polls early in the afternoon had predicted a significant win for the centre-left union coalition. Yet, as the first results came in, that certainty soon faded.
So close was the count that Mr Prodi was twice forced to delay an intended victory rally in Rome last night, with his staff saying that he wanted a complete assessment of the overall vote before declaring himself the winner.
At the end of a bitterly divided electoral campaign, yesterday's count was marked by further controversy with centre-left leaders arguing that the new electoral law passed by Mr Berlusconi's government last November had effectively created the conditions for a draw. The November legislation abolished the 75 per cent first-past-the-post, single seat constituency system used since 1994, replacing it with 100 per cent proportional representation.
A key feature of the electoral reform concerns the different allocations of seats in the two houses of parliament.
While the lower house winner also picks up a premium bonus of seats to guarantee a workable majority, that does not apply in the senate where the bonus seats are divided along regional lines.
Centre-left exponents were last night arguing that the legislation has created an anomalous situation in the senate in which the coalition with the majority of votes does not have a majority of seats.
"This legislation is Berlusconi's last poisonous gift to the Italian people. He basically said, I'm not going to win but I'm going to make sure that Prodi can't win either," said Daniele Cappezone, secretary of the Radical party, one of Mr Prodi's centre-left allies.
Whatever about the impact of the new electoral law, yesterday's helter-skelter of contrasting results, polls and projections was also partly prompted by a high voter turnout of 84 per cent which, in turn, caused a slower than usual count.
If and when today's definitive results confirm a virtual stalemate, with one coalition in control of the chamber of deputies and the other in control of the senate, then Italy will find itself in an unprecedented situation.
Under the Italian constitution, the new prime minister is nominated by the state president, a nomination that normally falls to the clear election winner.
Most commentators believe that in this current situation, president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi will nominate Mr Prodi, although this cannot be taken for granted.
What seems certain, given the bitter differences between the two coalitions, is that some form of national government along German lines can be ruled out.
During the campaign, Mr Prodi said that if the result was a "draw", Italians should go back to the polls. That, in the end, may well be what will happen, perhaps next autumn or even sooner. In the meantime, however, who will govern Italy?