Italy’s far-left alliance of Communists and Greens may not conjure up images of glitz and New York steaks, but leader Fausto Bertinotti has nevertheless picked the Hard Rock Cafe on Rome’s fashionable Via Veneto to wait out the tally of election results on Monday evening.  Conveniently located next to the American Embassy, the Hard Rock promises everything from hickory smoked chicken wings to mac & cheese to help ease the long wait ahead for the leader of the Rainbow Left coalition.

 Other candidates have chosen more traditional venues for the evening: the centre-right’s Silvio Berlusconi will be waiting it out at his villa in Arcore near Milan, while centre-left rival Walter Veltroni will be standing by at his party’s offices in Rome dubbed the “Loft”.

Far-right leader Daniela Santanche says she won’t stray far from her home in Milan, while Northern League leader Umberto Bossi and centrist leader Pier Ferdinando Casini will both be holed up at their respective party headquarters.

The judicial problems in Italy of former Justice Minister Clemente Mastella’s wife Sandra signaled the start of the political crisis that forced Italians back to the ballot box on Sunday and Monday, and she was back in the news over a ringing cellphone as she cast her vote.

Italy’s interior ministry has banned Italians from carrying cellphones or any device that can take pictures or videos into the voting booth, over fears of corruption. Sandra Mastella caused a minor stir when her cell phone started ringing while she voted in the southern town of Ceppaloni on Sunday, prompting electoral workers to call in the police. It turns out her cell phone did not double as a camera, meaning she was not violating the law.

“It was a banal distraction, I had it in my pocket,” Mastella said.

There were minor hiccups at other polling stations as well. In the northern town of Sant’Orsola, the head of a local polling station showed up drunk, prompting colleagues to call in the police. The chief was fined and a new, sober polling booth chairman was instated.

As Italians began trickling to the polls to vote in the general election on Sunday, some protested to show their disillusionment with politics.

Angry at plans to build a landfill site nearby, one group of young Neapolitans  gathered 600 election identification cards and sent them to the Italian president instead of using them to vote.

“I’m not going to vote because I don’t feel represented by the institutions and because there is no-one that worries about preserving our rights,” group member Sebastian Perrone told the Ansa news agency. 

Another angry Neapolitan took an even more novel approach: he ate his ballot form at the polling booth.

Finally, motorists on the A14 highway in Italy were greeted on Sunday morning by two large banners spray painted with the words : “Enough with politics, We want colonels!” They were quickly taken down by police.

A popular “anti-politics” movement led by figures like comedian Beppe Grillo has swept up about 6 to 8 percent of voters, estimates the pollster Luigi Crespi. He estimates the number of blank ballots will nearly triple to about 1 million during the April 13-14 election from about 400,000 in the last parliamentary election two years ago.

With her striking good looks and stiletto heels, Italy’s far-right candidate Daniela Santanche has been turning heads on the campaign trail. But is centre-right candidate Silvio Berlusconi also among her admirers? 

“Berlusconi? He’s obsessed with me. But I won’t give it to him…,” Santanche said during a campaign stop this week.

Berlusconi initially responded by saying he would not get into a debate with someone who comes from a world of “yachts, caviar and champagne.” But he was willing to play ball a day later. 

“Well! If she continues to come on to me….,” the media tycoon told reporters when they prodded him on Santanche’s comments again. 

Santanche and Berlusconi have been trading barbs throughout the election campaign, with the 47-year old businesswoman’s La Destra party expected to steal  votes on the right away from the 71-year old media tycoon looking to return to power for the third time.

Santanche — conscious of the small splash she has made by becoming one of the few women prime minister candidates in Italy – has reserved some of her sharpest rebukes for Berlusconi, urging Italian women not to vote for him and calling his views outdated and sexist.  

“Berlusconi better be careful, because on April 13-14, Italian women will be the ones to cook his goose,” Santanche told Reuters last week.