Pressure mounts on Silvio Berlusconi after poor local election results

SILVIO Berlusconi's mayoral candidates lost elections in the premier's stronghold of Milan and in the southern city of Naples yesterday in results that could undermine his government's stability and his leadership.

Mr Berlusconi urged Italians to go to the polls to signal their support for his conservative coalition government.

But final results from the run-off elections held yesterday and Sunday appeared to support recent opinion polls that have shown his popularity slipping as he faces a trial in Milan in a prostitution scandal. Critics have said most of his energy has been taken up defending himself from charges that he paid for sex with an underage Moroccan teenager then tried to cover it up.

The votes mark a setback for Mr Berlusconi, 74, personally and for his local candidates, analysts say, and will raise questions about his leadership.

In Milan, Mr Berlusconi's candidate, mayor Letizia Moratti, won about 45 per cent of the vote in the run-off against Giuliano Pisapia of the centre-left. Milan, Italy's financial and fashion capital and Mr Berlusconi's power base, had been run by conservative mayors for almost two decades.

The city also is a crucial power base of a key government ally, the Northern League, and the poor showing is likely to deepen rifts between Mr Berlusconi and the League's leader, Umberto Bossi. The League had been lukewarm toward Mr Moratti and it will no doubt be angry about having lost northern Italy's most important city.

In the Naples run-off, the left-wing candidate Luigi de Magistris, a former magistrate, took 65 per cent of the vote, against 35 per cent for Berlusconi's candidate, Gianni Lettieri.

The centre-left has long controlled Naples, but Mr Berlusconi had been hoping to take control of it as the city grapples with a long-standing refuse collection crisis and high unemployment, especially among the young. The premier sent soldiers to clean up the rubbish just before the vote.

"This vote marks a clear defeat of the right, a strategic defeat," said Stefano Folli, a political analyst. "It gives the sense that Berlusconi's political season is drawing to a close. Let's see if he will be capable of handling his own succession."

Mr Berlusconi was in Romania for bilateral talks yesterday. His allies acknowledged the defeat but sought to down play any national political repercussions.

"We are not on the eve of the end of Berlusconi, or of the Berlusconi season, or of the government," said Fabrizio Cicchitto, an ally of the premier.

He said the success of local candidates does not always translate into votes at general elections, but conceded: "We are faced with a necessary political reflection."

Mr Berlusconi went on trial in April on charges that he paid for sex with an underage Moroccan prostitute and tried to cover it up.The latest ballots were his first electoral test since the trial opened. Another three court cases all related to his business are also under way in Milan. He has denied all the charges.

The premier took to the airwaves so aggressively ahead of the run-offs that on one day he appeared nearly simultaneously in interviews on almost all the national newscasts. Opponents claimed this violated Italian regulations that state equal time must be given to all parties during electoral campaigning, and they filed a complaint.

Mr Berlusconi was placed under investigation for abuse of office, along with the heads of some of the newscasts. Prosecutors are obliged to open an inquiry after such a complaint.