Italy recounts some Prodi/Berlusconi election votes

ROME, Dec 15 (Reuters) Eight months after Romano Prodi beat Silvio Berlusconi in the closest election in modern Italian history, parliament has decided to recount a proportion of the ballots to look for irregularities.

If the recount returned a different result it could lead on to changes in the distribution of seats in parliament and, theoretically, even to a change of government, though the latter result is considered highly unlikely.

Media tycoon Berlusconi has never accepted defeat in the April 9-10 election which he lost by just 24,755 votes in the lower house and has said a recount is the only way to expose irregularities, something Prodi has dismissed.

Yesterday, a parliamentary committee said a recount of a sample of the ballots would go ahead.

Ballots from 10 per cent of constituencies will be recounted and if irregularities are found the all rest of the ballots could be recounted too. The first recount could take until July.

''We must insist, the wound has to remain open,'' Berlusconi, now leader of the centre-right opposition, was quoted as saying by Corriere della Sera newspaper.

''I am convinced that we won,'' Berlusconi told reporters, when asked if he thought there would be a total recount.

The government played down the recount. ''It's right. There's no reason in the world that all the votes cast by the electors should not be checked,'' Deputy Prime Minister Francesco Rutelli told a TV show.

''There's been a whole circus saying the ballots were fixed, let's count them and see.'' Accusations of voting fraud have been made by both sides.

Prosecutors are investigating claims by left-wing reporters that Berlusconi's supporters allocated blank ballots in his favour.

REUTERS DKS PM0517