Sepcial Report: Italy's general election

Former Italian PM and center-left leader Romano Prodi raises a victory sign with fingers after latest figures released by the Italian Interior Ministry shows the center-left coalition slightly leads in Italy's lower house election over center-right on early morning in Rome April 11. (Xinhua)

    ROME, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Italy's center-left coalition leader Romano Prodi vowed on Tuesday to adhere to his promises made during the country's general election, while Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi refused to concede defeat.

    Earlier in the day, Prodi claimed victory in the Sunday and Monday vote after the tally showed his coalition had squeaked past Berlusconi's center-right.

    When addressing supporters in a windy Roman piazza, he urged his allies to start working together immediately to change the country, taking their election program as a roadmap.

    The 280-page program, which took his allies several weeks to hammer out, was designed to bring Italy "peace, economic recovery and social harmony," Prodi said.

    He added that his coalition now had five years to work on the priorities listed on its electoral platform: economic growth, environment, employment, education, tax and foreign policy.

    "Now we have to start working together to implement the program and to change Italy. That's the only way we Italians can take a step forward," Prodi said.

    He also called on the center-right parties to collaborate on major reforms "for the good of the country," noting that all his allies in the center-left coalition, ranging from communists to liberals and Catholics, had signed the joint program in a bid to ensure his camp would not unravel amid policy disputes.

    Also on Tuesday, Berlusconi's center-right coalition refused to concede defeat in the knife-edge election, demanding checks on spoilt voting slips and even a possible recount.

    Sandro Bondi, coordinator for Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, told reporters that "Prodi hasn't won a blessed thing. The fact that he has declared himself the winner shows that he is a politician without any institutional sense."

    In the Lower House, the center-left won 49.8 percent compared to the center-right's 49.73 percent, a margin of just some 25,000 votes.