Conservatives Back In Power In Italy

The left failed once again and now its back to the conservatives:

Billionaire media mogul Silvio Berlusconi won a majority in both houses of the Italian parliament and will return to power for a third term as premier.

Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party and its allies took 166 seats in the Senate, the upper house, to 138 for Walter Veltroni’s Democratic Party and its partner, according to a projection by RAI state television. In the Chamber of Deputies, Berlusconi took 45.9 percent of the vote compared with Veltroni’s 38.9 percent, RAI estimated. That would give Berlusconi around 340 lower-house seats out of 630.

“Berlusconi is back,” said Maurizio Pessato, chief executive officer of polling company SWG Srl in Trieste, Italy. “With this result, he can last.”

Elections to choose Italy’s 62nd government since World War II were called three years early after Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s government collapsed in January. Prodi had only a single-seat majority in the Senate. Pollsters and analysts had raised the possibility that Berlusconi might be hamstrung by a similarly narrow margin in the upper house this time round.

“The result is clear,” Veltroni told reporters in Rome. “The center-right will govern.”

Guess we can blame Bush for Sarkozy in France, Merkel in Germany…and finally, Berlusconi in Italy. That damn Bush!