Sepcial Report: Italy's general election

    ROME, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Romano Prodi's center-left coalition announced on Tuesday that it had won Italy's parliamentary election after Italians abroad gave him four crucial seats in the Senate, according to the state television RAI.

    Although final confirmation from the Italian Interior Ministry was not available at present, the extra seats appeared to have tipped the balance in the upper house in favour of Prodi's camp.

    Satellite TV news network SkyTG24 also reported that the six Senate seats decided by Italians abroad had given the center-left victory.

    Meanwhile, other reports said that Berlusconi and his center-right coalition had won only one of the six seats in the Senate decided by overseas Italians, and that Prodi had ended up with a 158-156 victory.

    The center-left said it would also get the support of the independent candidate who had won the sixth seat.

    This razor-thin majority, coupled with a clearer advantage in the Italian Lower House, ensured Prodi overall victory in the election and cleared the way for him to form a new government.

    "Having won the election, with this result we can govern the country for five years," Prodi told supporters outside his political headquarters in central Rome.

    "We're going to have to work hard," he added.

    Before the foreign votes for the 315-seat Senate came in, it had appeared that the country might be faced with a hung parliament.

    Earlier of the day, domestic voting gave the center-right 50.2 percent of the vote in the Senate election, against 48.95 percent for the center-left.

    The election for the Lower House, won by the center-left, was just as tight. Excluding votes from abroad, the center-left won 49.8 percent compared to 49.73 percent for the center-right, a difference of just over 25,000 votes.

    However, thanks to the extra packet of seats awarded to the winner by Italy's new election law, the center-left was given 341 seats in the Lower House, against 277 for the center-right.

    The remaining 12 seats in Italy's Lower House must be assigned on the basis of votes cast by Italians abroad. The Interior Ministry is expected to release these results Tuesday afternoon. Enditem