A top Italian court yesterday confirmed center-left leader Romano Prodi's slim electoral victory over Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Sky TV news said.
The reported confirmation by the Court of Cassation, a top Italian court in Rome, comes after the review of some 5,200 ballots that were not immediately included in the overall count because the voters' intentions were not clear.
The court said an official announcement would not be made until later yesterday.
Prodi said he would not comment until after the official announcement, the ANSA news agency reported.
Prodi won a razor-thin majority in the April 9-10 vote, winning control of both houses of parliament.
For days, the former prime minister and ex-EU chief has claimed victory, urging Berlusconi to concede defeat.
But the conservative leader has so far remained defiant.
The confirmation was widely expected after the Interior Ministry last week reduced the number of the contested ballots from more than 80,000 to 5,200, dashing Berlusconi's hopes of overturning the election result.
In any case, it will be weeks before Prodi can take over as prime minister.
It is up to the president to give the mandate to form a government. However, the current president's term expires mid-next month, and he has indicated he wants to leave the task to his successor.
Prodi has been meeting with allies in recent days, including yesterday, as he prepares to establish a new government.
In a statement on Tuesday, Berlusconi's center-right coalition contended that in the rush to get information to the high court for the ballot review, lower courts may have made errors. A leader of the prime minister's party warned of unspecified legal action if doubts over the ballots remain.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
RSS