Sepcial Report: Italy's general election

Italy's centre-left coalition led by Romano Prodi talked with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on June 24, 2005. (Photo: Xinhua/Reuters)

    ROME, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Italy's centre-left coalition led by Romano Prodi has won control of Italy's lower house of parliament in general elections, showed provisional final official data released on Tuesday.

    According to provisional data released by the Interior Ministry,  Prodi's central-left coalition won 49.8 percent of the votes for the lower house compared to 49.7 percent for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right bloc.

    Under Italy's new electoral rules, Prodi's coalition will take 340 seats in the 630-member lower house of parliament.

    Earlier Tuesday, Prodi claimed victory for his centre-left coalition in a vote for the lower house of parliament.

    "Today, we have turned a page. We will always be united. We will govern for five years," Prodi told his supporters from a stage outside the headquarters of his Union coalition in central Rome.

    The outcome of a Senate race was still uncertain. Nearly complete results released by the Interior Ministry showed that 155 Senate seats went to Berlusconi's coalition, compared to 154 for Prodi's forces. But still to be counted were results for six seat selected by Italians abroad.

    But Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition on Tuesday disputed Romano Prodi's claim to have won Italy's general election.

    Berlusconi's spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti said the centre-right bloc would call for a "scrupulous" check of election ballots. Enditem