At precisely three o'clock on Monday, Italy's election booths closed after a day and a half of voting for a new national parliament, and within seconds the exit pollsters announced that Romano Prodi's center-left coalition would win by more than five percentage points in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, thereby giving him a victory of historic magnitude and decisively driving Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from politics. Mr. Prodi would sweep triumphantly into power with his multicolored allies who range from the Greens and Radicals (whose foreign policy is highly neoconservative) to three versions of communism: those who were, but gave it up when the wall fell; those who say they still are, but are sufficiently bland so that nobody really believes it; and those who still are (and whose foreign policy is not at all neocon).
Mr. Prodi announced that the country had entered a new era, and the faithful, who had gnashed their teeth for five infuriating years of Mr. Berlusconi, began decorating the piazzas for the big victory party, scheduled for half-past six. But this happy dream didn't last long, as the actual numbers refused to conform to the pollsters' predictions. The celebration was postponed, hour after hour, and by midnight Mr. Berlusconi was ahead in the projections in both houses. National television, which in Italy means lots of talking and plenty of emotion, was full of dramatic mood swings, as representatives of the two sides could see their political fortunes reverse two or three times during the course of the broadcast.
Puccini would have relished this operatic election. All'alba vincerò! Vincerò! Vincerò! -- At daybreak, I will win! I will win! I will win! Early the following morning, by when a physically exhausted and emotionally drained Romano Prodi had apparently captured both houses by minuscule margins and had again declared victory, the outcome was full of paradoxes.
Mr. Prodi had won, but looked surprisingly like a loser, although not as big a loser as the exit pollsters. His political strength seemed to have been considerably weakened and his future was highly uncertain. Mr. Berlusconi had lost but, as even his enemies on the left had to admit, he was in many ways the big winner, having trailed Mr. Prodi in the polls by double digits just a few weeks ago. He had demonstrated an uncanny ability to "connect" with the electorate, something that virtually the entire foreign press corps in Italy either does not understand or refuses to acknowledge. Most foreign coverage focused on Mr. Berlusconi's raw language during the campaign, especially his overanalyzed "coglioni" (very roughly, idiots) remark about the opposition's supporters, as if Italian public life were not full of such language, as it has been for at least a generation, and as if he had alienated a large chunk of the electorate. Wrong. Mr. Berlusconi remains the most potent single political force in the country, even though the left's hatred for him is as boundless as the hatred for George Bush among American leftists.
Perhaps the greatest paradox was that Mr. Berlusconi engineered his own defeat by changing the electoral system last year, over the violent objections of Mr. Prodi's coalition, which now can thank their enemy for their victory. Five years ago he won with a system that assigned most seats by voting district, with an additional quota coming from national party lists. He forced parliament to institute an odd system whereby the Chamber of Deputies was chosen proportionally, but the senators were elected region by region. And, in order to guarantee that the winner would have a stable governing majority even if he won by a tiny margin, there were big bonuses for the winner: an overall bonus in the Chamber, and regional bonuses, based on population, in the Senate.
Mr. Berlusconi paid heavily for these innovations. The center-left won the Chamber by less than 30,000 votes -- out of nearly 40 million -- but has a stable majority, and in the Senate, the center-right got 450,000 votes more than the center-left, but lost. They lost also because of the fact that, of six senators elected outside Italy (who were never supposed to have a serious political role), four went to the Prodi coalition.
So Italy will be governed by center-left politicians whose confidence has been shaken, and whose behavior in office is surprisingly unpredictable. Their campaign promises are the usual staples of the Euroleft: cool relations with America, clamp down on private initiative, and tax the rich. Mr. Prodi is the incarnation of much of this, having served as the head of the European Commission, and having been the EU's biggest cheerleader for many years. Yet he is smart enough to know that a full-bore implementation of the leftist program is probably political suicide. He dropped to near-defeat when Mr. Berlusconi hammered him on taxes, warning that if Mr. Prodi won, middle-class Italians would be soaked for whatever is left after the country's already predatory tax system has taken its bite. Mr. Prodi bobbed and weaved, one day promising to have an inheritance tax, the next denying it; one day promising to tax private homes (80% of Italians have one), the next saying "only expensive homes" -- and the day after that defining "expensive homes" at a level that would include most everyone.
Given the narrow margin in the Senate, Mr. Prodi will have to be very careful what he asks for, since a defeat on any piece of legislation could bring down the government, and produce new elections that would likely end his political career. He'll have to herd all his cats whenever a vote comes up, including the overseas senators who never intended to move to Rome and actually work.
On foreign policy, Mr. Prodi will be urged by his communist allies to follow the Zapatero model -- after the accidental prime minister of Spain -- which means everyone out of Iraq right away, and formally correct, but not warm, relations with Washington. But recent polls (with all the caveats we must now attach to Italian polls) showed that a hefty majority of Italians, while wanting the troops out of Iraq, would feel embarrassed if the withdrawal took place before the scheduled date at year's end.
Mr. Prodi is certainly not anti-American, but his leftist partners hate capitalism, America and George Bush. He will certainly not be the friend and ally of President Bush that Mr. Berlusconi has been. But neither is he likely to be an open critic and nuisance à la Jacques Chirac and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Italy needs (and Italians want) American friendship, so Mr. Prodi will likely choose a foreign minister who is known and liked in Washington, to demonstrate his support for the underlying relationship.
Meanwhile, we will get a sense of Italy's direction when the new parliament elects a president of the republic in May, and leaders of both the Chamber and the Senate. These choices must be made before Mr. Prodi nominates his cabinet.
Ten years ago, Italians had to choose between two factions headed -- surprise! -- by Messrs. Prodi and Berlusconi. However long Mr. Prodi may govern, we undoubtedly know the name of his successor. Indeed, it is still technically possible for Mr. Berlusconi to remain in office, because the courts are required to check the tallies, which are reported telephonically to the interior ministry. There is normally a difference of 40,000 to 60,000 votes between the original results provided by the interior ministry and the final numbers. In 2001 the number was 57,000. So it is still possible that, when the courts announce the results on April 28, the center-right will have a stable majority in the Chamber. It would only require a shift of about 13,000 votes.
It would be a fitting final scene for the melodrama of the past few days.
Mr. Ledeen is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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