Italians voted for a second and final day in a general election on Monday with a surge in protest votes increasing the risk of an unstable outcome that could undermine Europe's efforts to end its three-year debt crisis.

Turnout was 55 percent when polls closed on Monday, 7 percentage points below the turnout in the previous national election in 2008. Experts say a low turnout will hurt the mainstream parties. Usually, around 80 percent of the 50 million eligible voters go to the polls.

Opinion polls gave the center-left coalition led by former industry minister Pier Luigi Bersani a narrow lead but the race has been thrown wide open by the prospect of protest votes against austerity, and corporate and political scandals.

"I'm sick of the scandals and the stealing," said Paolo Gentile, a 49-year-old lawyer in Rome who said he had voted for the 5-Star Movement, an anti-establishment protest group set to make a huge impact in its first general election.

"We need some young, new people in parliament, not the old parties that are totally discredited," he said.

Most of the voters interviewed outside polling stations on Sunday and Monday expected the next government would quickly collapse, thwarting efforts to end an economic crisis.

"I'm very pessimistic. I don't think that whoever wins will last long or be able to solve the problems of this country," said Cristiano Reale, a 43-year-old salesman in Palermo, Sicily. He said he would vote for the far-left Civil Revolution group.

A bitter campaign, fought largely over economic issues, has been closely watched by financial markets, nervous about the return of the kind of debt crisis that took the eurozone close to disaster and brought technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti to office in 2011.

Italy is the third-largest economy in the 17-member bloc and the prospect of political stalemate could cause dangerous market instability.

The final result should be known late on Monday or early on Tuesday, but an extremely close Senate race is expected in several battleground regions and this could delay the final result.

Italian markets were sanguine on Monday morning, with both stocks and bonds showing little change.

Many analysts believe that whatever the result, the next government will be forced to stick to Italy's fiscal commitments because of the fear of a sudden rise in borrowing costs if markets take fright.

The election result is likely to be the most fragmented in decades, with the old left-right division disrupted by the rise of 5-Star, led by fiery Genoese comic Beppe Grillo, and by Monti's decision to run at the head of a centrist bloc.

"It will be a vote of protest, maybe of revolt," said Corriere della Sera, Italy's largest newspaper, on Monday.

Reuters-AP

(China Daily 02/26/2013 page10)