(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/130225-italy-bersani-10a.photoblog600.jpg)Paolo Bona / ReutersPier Luigi Bersani, seen on Sunday with his wife Daniela and his daughters Elisa and Margherita at a polling station in Piacenza, Italy.By Barry Moody and James Mackenzie, ReutersROME -- A center-left coalition appears to have secured a victory over the center-right alliance led by former premier Silvio Berlusconi in Italy’s general election (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/24/17073574-fed-up-italians-head-to-polls-in-crucial-vote-for-europe?lite), according to two telephone exit polls.
A poll for Sky television published after voting ended at 2 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET) showed the anti-establishment protest movement of Beppe Grillo taking third place.
It showed the center-left ahead by 5.5 points in the lower house and by 6 points in the Senate, although the result there will depend on key battleground regions. In the most important, Lombardy, Sky said the center-left was tied with Berlusconi.
Sky had the center-left - led by cigar-chomping former Communist Pier Luigi Bersani (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/20/17028198-polls-cigar-chomping-former-communist-will-be-italys-next-leader) - at 34.5 percent, Berlusconi's center-right at 29 percent, Grillo at 19 percent and former Prime Minister Mario Monti slumping to 9.5 percent after a lackluster centrist campaign that deeply disappointed his backers among foreign governments and investors.
A phone poll for RAI state television showed a similar lineup with the center left 6 points ahead of Berlusconi in the lower house.(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/130225-italy-berlusconi-10a.380;380;7;70;0.jpg)Antonio Calanni / APFormer Premier Silvio Berlusconi exits a booth as he votes in a polling station in Milan, Sunday. Italy's electoral laws guarantee a strong majority in the lower house to the party or coalition that wins the biggest share of the national vote.
However the Senate, elected on a region-by-region basis, is more complicated, and the result could turn on a handful of regions, including Lombardy in the rich industrial north and the southern island of Sicily.
Italy, the euro zone's third largest economy (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50889498), is pivotal to stability in the region as a whole. The period of maximum peril for the currency was when Rome's borrowing costs were spiraling out of control at the end of 2011.
Related:
Polls: Cigar-chomping former communist will be Italy's next leader (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/20/17028198-polls-cigar-chomping-former-communist-will-be-italys-next-leader)
Pope's resignation could thwart Berlusconi comeback (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/13/16949245-popes-abdication-could-thwart-silvio-berlusconis-political-comeback?lite)
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