Italian stalemate

As of 3 a.m. Italian time, the elections are still too close to call, which portend a mini-crisis in the "sick man of Europe" (a title recently 'won' from Germany). While the end result will likely favor Romano Prodi over Silvio Berlusconi, it will be an inconclusive victory because of the election rules pushed through under Berlusconi, which incorporated proportional voting. Right now, the polls show the center-left under Prodi winning the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, and Berlusconi's center-right coalition with a lead in the Senate (155 to 154), with the 5 seats given to Italians living abroad uncounted. If the result is a split legislature, Prodi and Berlusconi have said they would cal for a new election, but that wouldn't do much to alleviate the stalemate. What Italy needed now was a strong win by the center-left in order to create the impression of a change from Berlusconi's policies, which have done little if anything to help economic growth. The data for GDP (year-on-year growth) and the ratio of public indebtedness to GDP are listed below:

GDP (% increase)
2000: Euro 946.4 billion
2001: Euro 963.4 billion (1.8%)
2002: Euro 966.6 billion (0.3%)
2003: Euro 967.0 billion (0.0%)
2004: Euro 977.3 billion (1.1%)
2005: Euro 967.0 billion (-0.0%)

Public Debt (% of GDP)
2000: 137.0%
2001: 138.6%
2002: 145.5%
2003: 147.4%
2004: 153.5%

Note: My calculations for public debt are probably overstated. They were calculated on, for example, 2000 Q1 debt/2000 GDP (measured at the end of the fiscal year). However, Italian debt is still quite high. Estimates I've seen for 2005 are in the area of 106% of GDP.