Italy Vote May Result in Divided Parliament

Another election may be necessary

Italy may require another vote after the four-way race that ended today was poised to result in a divided parliament.

"Those projections show a risk of ungovernability," Stefano Fassina, economic-policy spokesman for Democratic Party candidate Pier Luigi Bersani, said today on Italy's La7 television. Forecasts by IPR Marketing and state broadcaster RAI showed Bersani winning the lower chamber and Silvio Berlusconi with a blocking minority in the Senate.

Italian bonds fell and stocks pared a rally as voters repudiated budget rigor and turned to the billionaire ex-prime minister who was forced out in November 2011 by Europe's financial crisis. In Italy, where premiers require control of both houses of parliament, Berlusconi may have won the Senate race in the swing regions of Sicily, Campania and Lombardy, according to an IPR projection based on partial vote counts.