Berlusconi faces Italy poll defeat

Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi casts his vote in Rome's mayoral election

ROME, Italy -- Centre-left candidates are heading for victories in Italian mayoral runoff elections in Rome, Naples and Turin.

The elections were held on Sunday -- just two weeks after media baron Silvio Berlusconi's conservatives had scored a solid win in parliamentary elections.

First partial actual results, reported by the Interior Ministry early on Monday, two hours after polls closed, appeared to back up the projected results announced on state-run television.

The widest victory was claimed in the northern industrial city of Turin, where centre-left candidate Sergio Chiamparino was leading 52.9 to 47.1, final projections indicated.

He and his centre-right opponent, Roberto Rossi, had finished virtually head-to-head in the first round two weeks earlier, the Associated Press reported.

The most prestigious race was in Rome. There Antonio Tajani, a former journalist who had served as Berlusconi's spokesman when the media magnate was premier in 1994, was trailing centre-left candidate Walter Veltroni.

Veltroni, a former Communist, was ahead by 4 percentage points, 52 to 48 percent, projections indicated, and Veltroni early Monday claimed victory.

In Naples, center-left candidate Rosa Russo Jervolino, a former Christian Democrat, urged all of the city to go out and celebrate with her in the city's main square.

Projections indicated she would win the city's top post by a margin of 52.3 to 47.3 percent, defeating Antonio Martusciello.

Martusciello, an advertising manager, was plucked by Berlusconi's media empire last decade when the billionaire businessman jumped into politics and needed politicians for his party.

Two weeks earlier, Berlusconi's conservative bloc had scored a solid victory over the center-left coalition headed by former Rome Mayor Francesco Rutelli in nationwide elections for Parliament.

Berlusconi is expected to form a government early next month after the new parliament convenes. Runoffs were held in cities where mayoral candidates failed to score more than 50 percent of the vote on May 13.

Mayoral runoffs were also held in scores of smaller cities across the country, with a total of 6 million Italians eligible to vote.

Some smaller cities had their counts complete, with the center-left and the center-right each chalking up some victories.

After the center-left's loss nationwide on May 13, the Rome mayorship became a kind of test if the opposition could successfully challenge the conservatives.

"For me, everything is at stake. It's do or die," said Veltroni, a former culture minister with the outgoing national center-left coalition.

Because of the election, major league soccer games on Sunday were postponed from late afternoon till evening.

Authorities were worried that, especially in the capital, pandemonium might erupt if one of Rome's teams, Roma, clinched the season championship, but Roma failed to clinch it.