ROME (Reuters) – The big winner in Italy’s election was populist leader Beppe Grillo, but young Florence mayor Matteo Renzi is emerging as a less obvious beneficiary of a huge protest vote that threatens to destroy the old political system.

Renzi, a telegenic, 38-year-old American-style politician who toured Italy in a camper van before Grillo did the same in his campaign, is the opposite of colourless centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, the election’s biggest loser.

ROME (Reuters) – The big winner in Italy’s election was populist leader Beppe Grillo, but young Florence mayor Matteo Renzi is emerging as a less obvious beneficiary of a huge protest vote that threatens to destroy the old political system.

Renzi, a telegenic, 38-year-old American-style politician who toured Italy in a camper van before Grillo did the same in his campaign, is the opposite of colorless centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, the election’s biggest loser.

ROME (Reuters) – The big winner in Italy’s election was populist leader Beppe Grillo, but young Florence mayor Matteo Renzi is emerging as a less obvious beneficiary of a huge protest vote that threatens to destroy the old political system.

Renzi, a telegenic, 38-year-old American-style politician who toured Italy in a camper van before Grillo did the same in his campaign, is the opposite of colourless centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, the election’s biggest loser.

ROME (Reuters) – As Italy faces a deep political crisis, the fate of the country is in the hands of an octogenarian former communist only weeks from retirement.

Under Italy’s constitution, President Giorgio Napolitano, 87, is charged with trying to find the way out of an intractable impasse caused by a huge protest vote in the Feb 24-25 election, which saw no group emerge with enough support to govern.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s electoral earthquake seems to have condemned the country to the thing it needs least – a short-term government and new elections in as little as six months or a year.

A huge protest vote in the Feb 24-25 election produced the worst possible result for Italy’s stagnant and recession-hit economy – a parliament in which no single group has a workable majority and populist leader Beppe Grillo has the whip hand.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s electoral earthquake seems to have condemned the country to the thing it needs least – a short-term government and new elections in as little as six months or a year.

A huge protest vote in the Feb 24-25 election produced the worst possible result for Italy’s stagnant and recession-hit economy – a parliament in which no single group has a workable majority and populist leader Beppe Grillo has the whip hand.

ROME, Feb 27 (Reuters) – An Italian political crisis that
has rattled the euro zone deepened on Wednesday when two party
leaders ruled out the most likely options to form a government
and avoid a new election.

Populist leader Beppe Grillo slammed the door on overtures
from center-left boss Pier Luigi Bersani with a stream of
insults while Nichi Vendola, Bersani’s junior coalition partner,
ruled out a government alliance with the center-right.

ROME (Reuters) – An Italian political crisis that has rattled the euro zone deepened on Wednesday when two party leaders ruled out the most likely options to form a government and avoid a new election.

Populist leader Beppe Grillo slammed the door on overtures from center-left boss Pier Luigi Bersani with a stream of insults while Nichi Vendola, Bersani’s junior coalition partner, ruled out a government alliance with the center-right.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s election not only shocked the political establishment to the core, it left polling companies with egg on their face after they completely failed to predict the messy outcome and the spectacular resurgence of Silvio Berlusconi.

Opinion polls are banned in the last two weeks before Italian elections and the last public ones on February 8 almost all predicted a clear center-left victory, mostly by around five percentage points.

ROME, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Billionaire showman Silvio
Berlusconi has again pulled off an astonishing fight-back from
scandal and humiliation, coming within a whisker of success in
Italy’s election.

Before the Feb 24-25 vote, pollsters and analysts widely
predicted this would be the media magnate’s last hurrah and he
would be clearly beaten by his centre-left foes. They said he
would eventually disappear from the scene.