Center-left sees off Berlusconi challenge in Italy election: polls

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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, 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 - 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.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, 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

Pope's resignation could thwart Berlusconi comeback

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