Claims of fraud in Italian election

SEVEN months after Italy's cliffhanger election, Italian magistrates are investigating claims that the defeated government of Silvio Berlusconi tried to steal victory using a rigged computer program.

SEVEN months after Italy's cliffhanger election, Italian magistrates are investigating claims that the defeated government of Silvio Berlusconi tried to steal victory using a rigged computer program.

The fraud allegations are detailed in a new documentary, Kill Democracy, by investigative journalist Beppe Cremagnani and Enrico Deaglio, the editor of left-wing magazine Diario.

About 150,000 copies of the DVD sold out in Italian newsagencies over the weekend.

The documentary claims a rigged software program was used to siphon blank voting papers - cast as protest votes - to Mr Berlusconi's centre-right coalition, which trailed in the opinion polls. It focuses on a sharp drop in the number of blank ballots, from 1.6 million in the 2001 election (4.2 per cent of the vote) to 445,497 in April this year (1.1 per cent, an historic low).

The documentary suggests many more blank votes were cast, but were redistributed to the Centre-Right using a computer program that rigged the results as they were transmitted from polling booths to the tally room at the Interior Ministry.

Mr Berlusconi himself accused his left-wing rivals of electoral fraud when he lost the election by fewer than 25,000 votes out of 38million cast - the closest result in Italy's post-war history.

Expatriate Italians, voting for the first time, delivered a narrow victory to centre-left leader Romano Prodi, who holds power with a majority of less than 0.1 per cent - much less than the cushy margin suggested in exit polls.

Italians living in Australia elected two Melbourne-based candidates for the Centre-Left - Nino Randazzo for the Senate and Marco Fedi for the Chamber of Deputies.

But 10,000, or one in four, of the votes cast from Australia were rejected as spoiled ballots.

Mr Berlusconi angrily demanded a recount of all spoiled votes, but reluctantly conceded defeat after Italy's Supreme Court confirmed his narrow loss.

Roman prosecutors now have begun to compare the raw data on blank voting slips, furnished by each polling station, against the final figures tallied by the Interior Ministry.

They also plan to analyse the computer programs used by the Interior Ministry, Italian newspapers reported yesterday.

A parliamentary committee also is investigating anomalies in the election.

Public Works Minister Antonio Di Pietro - a former anti-mafia prosecutor - called for a public inquiry yesterday into the vote-rigging allegations.

But former interior minister Beppe Pisanu vowed to sue the filmmakers over their "unfounded, false and slanderous" allegations.

Mr Berlusconi's former deputy, Giulio Tremonti, said it was absurd to suggest his government had rigged the vote, only to lose by 25,000 votes. "I've never seen anyone rig an election and lose," he said yesterday.

The leader of the right-wing National Alliance, Gianfranco Fini, demanded a total recount.

"Recount every vote, one by one, and not only the blank ones," he said yesterday.

"We must be absolutely certain that the electoral result reflects the will of the voters."

A spokesman for Mr Berlusconi yesterday dismissed the documentary as "a great beat-up".

But Mr Prodi's spokesman said he had questions about the "surprising" reduction in the number of blank voting papers cast.