ROME—Italy entered a period of political instability on Monday after national elections boosted populists but failed to produce a winner with enough support to patch together a parliamentary majority.

Sunday’s two big winners—the 5 Star Movement and a center-right coalition including former Premier Silvio Berlusconi and the anti-immigrant League—each claimed Monday to have won enough support to earn the right to try to form a government. But with neither group having won an outright majority, Italy is likely to face weeks...</s>Italy’s 18th general election since 1948 takes place on Sunday March 4, less than three months after President Sergio Matarella dissolved Parliament on December 28. Today, Italians will head to the polls to cast their ballots for the 945 member Parliament, between 7am and 11pm local time (6am and 10pm GMT). The people will simultaneously cast their votes for the 630 member lower chamber, known as the Camera dei Deuptati, and the 315 member Senate, known as the Camera del Senato. The first exit polls should be published immediately after polls close at 11pm local time but votes are not expected to be fully counted until around 2pm on Monday local time (1pm GMT). Approxmately 50.7 million Italians are eligible to vote in today’s election. Here is the latest on the Italian Election 2018 as polls open. All times in GMT.

10.47am update: Millions of Italians will turn out to vote today Some 50.7 million Italians are eligible to vote and polling booths will remain open until 11 pm (10pm GMT). Local media will publish exit polls immediately afterwards, but it might take many hours before the full result emerges. Opinion polls were banned in the last two weeks of the campaign but surveys suggest Berlusconi’s alliance was in front but would not win a majority. Pollsters say the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement should emerge as the largest single party, while the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD) is seen coming third. Official results are expected early on Monday, although the final result might not be clear until late on Monday.

More than 200 polling stations are still closed two hours after the official opening of the vote. Polling stations in the southern Italian city Palermo, Sicily had to ask citizens to return later today to cast their ballots as they were delivered the wrong voting papers. It is understood more than 200,000 voting papers had to be reprinted and delivered to the polling stations involved. The ballot papers were not displaying the name of President of the Senate Pietro Grasso, leader of left-wing coalition Liberi E Uguali. Mr Grasso took to Twitter to voice his disappointment. He wrote: “In the most important day for a democracy these delays and mistakes are unacceptable. READ MORE: More than 200 polling stations CLOSED over wrong voting papers

10am update: Matteo Renzi casts his vote in the Italian election Renzi has voted in his polling station in Florence around 9.20am Italian time, the polling station was full with photographers and journalists so he said to the officials of the polling station "sorry for the annoyance". The current President of Italy has voted in Palermo and Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has also cast his vote in Rome.

The vote could bring political gridlock to Italy as no bloc is predicted to win enough votes to form a majority in government. Since the fall of fascism, all electoral laws have been re-written, so no single party can run by itself, instead seats are distributed in a proportional way. Even big parties need alliances to be able to have a majority and form a government, parties start their campaign from the beginning who they will ally with and form coalition lists with them. The centre-right bloc is formed of Forza Italia, Lega and Brothers of Italy and the centre-left bloc is made up of Democratic Party (Partito Democratic PD) and Insieme, Civica Popolare and +Europa. According to Paolo Cossarini, teaching fellow in Politics and International Relations at Loughborough University, he has predicted the vote percentage of the main blocs as follows:
• Party not in pre-electoral alliance - Five Star Movement: 25-28%

8.48am update: Berlusconi’s centre-right bloc likely to win most seats Pollsters have predicted that former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and his far-right allies will emerge as the largest bloc in parliament, but fall short of a parliamentary majority. The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement looks set the be the biggest single party, establishing itself as a populist party, with the young at its heart. There was momentum for 5-Star in the final days of the campaign, but it is hard to see any party or coalition getting the 40 percent needed to form a government," said Lorenzo Pregliasco, co-founder of YouTrend pollsters. Polling stations close at 11.00 p.m. (2200 GMT), with exit polls due immediately afterwards. The vote is being held under a complex new electoral law which means the final result might not be clear until late Monday.

8.26am update: When do the polls close tonight? The polls will be open from 7am until 11pm today (6am untl 10pm GMT). Italians will vote across the country in the unpredictable contest which has largely been dominated by immigration. The first exit polls should be published immediately after the the polls close and the votes are expected to be counted around 2pm local time on Monday (3pm GMT). All 945 members of the parliament will be elected for the 18th legislature since 1948 - Camera dei Deputati (Chamber of Deputies/lower chamber) and 315 of the Camera del Senato (the Senate/upper house).

6am update: With the polls now open, here is what could happen in the election today What are the latest Italian Election 2018 polls? Under Italian law, publishing opinion polls in the the penultimate two weeks of the electoral campaign is outlawed, but the last batch of polls paints a pretty clear picture of how the vote will go down. Since the start of polling back in January 2018, the M5S has been a clear favourite to be the single biggest party in Parliament, followed by the PD. A February 15 poll by Demopolis indicates a 28 percent vote for the M5S, a 22.5 percent vote for PD and 16.5 for Berlusconi’s FI. Despite bad reviews in Rome, Five Star Movement is the number one single party in the polls, projected to win more than 27 percent of votes. The incumbent ruling party, the Democratic Party, is behind, projected to win less than 23 percent. But Berlusconi is expected to lead the way to victory with his centre-right coalition of three parties — former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, the populist La Lega and Brothers of Italy, with neo-fascist roots — polling at 37 percent. However, a 2013 conviction for tax fraud means Berlusconi cannot himself hold public office and so he has put forward Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, as his pick for prime minister. Berlusconi was forced to quit as Italian prime minister in 2011 amidst a sovereign debt crisis and was widely discredited after sex scandals, legal trouble and ill health.</s>ROME -- The Latest on Italy's national election on Sunday (all times local):

Analysts say early projections from Italy's election indicate that a hung parliament is the most likely outcome and that the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement's strong showing may send a negative signal to financial markets.

Wolfango Piccoli of the Teneo consultancy noted early Monday that building a majority in the Italian Parliament "will be hard if not impossible," and that tough negotiations were expected.

The early projections had the 5-Star Movement as the strongest single party but a centre-right coalition comprising three parties was leading overall. Neither had enough of a lead to govern alone.

Economic analyst Lorenzo Codogno, a former Treasury official, said the 5-Star's showing was better than expected and that "financial markets are likely to take these figures negatively."

He warned that talks on forming a government would be "long and complex."

A top leader of Italy's 5-Star Movement says if exit poll data prove accurate, it's an election "triumph" for the populist force.

Alessandro Di Battista, addressing 5-Star supporters early Monday, exulted over indications the anti-establishment movement was the leading party in Italy's election for Parliament.

But the 30 per cent support indicated by a RAI state TV exit poll is far short of the absolute majority needed to form Italy's next government.

The 5-Star Movement has officially vowed not to join any post-election coalitions. But Di Battista welcomed other parties to come talk as long as they use 5-Star "methods" of "transparency" and "correctness" in political conduct.

One possible partner is the anti-migrant League led by Matteo Salvini. He is dueling with ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi for leadership of the centre-right bloc that early projections had as the largest bloc in the new Parliament.

Projections from Italy's election indicate that the populist 5-Star Movement was the top party but hasn't received the majority it would need to govern alone.

RAI State TV's first projections with 7 per cent of the vote counted early Monday showed the 5-Star Movement with 31.8 per cent of the vote.

The projection did not look at how coalitions fared in Sunday's election. The anti-immigrant, euroskeptic League had 15.9 per cent of the vote and its coalition partner, former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, came in at 14.2 per cent.

The Democratic Party, which is leading the current government, had just 19.6 per cent.

An RAI exit poll gave the centre-right coalition of which the League and Forza Italia are part a slight edge over the 5-Star Movement.

Italy's Interior Ministry says the turnout for the national election was 71.48 per cent, a drop from the 75 per cent of eligible voters who participated in the 2013 election.

Sunday's election was held to seat Italy's next parliament and to choose the parties that will form the next government. Before Election Day, analysts had expressed fears of voters being increasingly disillusioned with the political system.

An exit poll by Italy's RAI state TV shows a centre-right coalition has a slight edge over the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement in the Italian election.

The exit poll by the Piepoli polling agency on Sunday had the three-party coalition with 33 per cent to 36 per cent of the vote, compared with the 5-Star Movement's 29.5 per cent to 32.5 per cent.

Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and Matteo Salvini's anti-immigrant League are the two biggest partners in the coalition.

The exit poll's margin of error of 3 per cent puts the two political forces neck-and-neck.

The centre-left coalition led by the Democratic Party, currently heading the government, was lagging at 24.5 per cent to 27.5 per cent.

An exit poll by Italy's RAI state TV shows the populist 5-Star Movement leading the Italian election but not with a strong enough lead to govern alone.

The exit poll by the Piepoli polling agency had the 5-Star Movement with between 29.5 per cent and 32.5 per cent of Sunday's vote. The Democratic Party was the next largest party, with between 20 per cent and 23 per cent of the vote, according to the poll.

Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and the anti-immigrant League each were polling at between 12.5 per cent and 15.5 per cent. They were running as part of a three party centre-right coalition.

The exit poll has a margin of error of 3 per cent.

Italian authorities are urging voters to leave plenty of time to cast their ballots since the process is taking longer than usual due to new anti-fraud measures.

Voters have complained of long lines -- some of more than an hour -- at polling stations around the country.

Rome's city hall urged voters to head out as soon as possible, or at least an hour before polls close at 11 p.m. (2200 GMT) Sunday.

City authorities said the delays were due "in great part" to new anti-fraud measures. Under the new system, each ballot has a serial number that is entered in the registration books alongside the name of the voter who receives the ballot.

After the voter fills out the ballot and seals it, the detachable coupon with the serial number on it is removed and presented to the head of the polling station to make sure it matches the number in the registry.

The polling station chief then deposits the ballot in the box without any identifying information.

A topless Femen activist has disrupted polling in Italy's national election while ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi was casting his ballot.

The woman, who had the words "Berlusconi, you've expired" written in black marker on her topless torso, jumped onto the table at the Milan polling station as Berlusconi was voting.

Photographers in the room to shoot the scene jostled for position amid the chaos. Berlusconi was escorted out.

News reports recalled that Femen activists disrupted Berlusconi's vote in 2013 as well.

Italy's interior ministry says the turnout for Italy's general election at noon (1100GMT) stands at 19.3 per cent, five hours after polls opened.

Long lines awaited voters in Rome, Milan and other cities, and some voters expressed confusion at the ballots.

It was not possible to compare Sunday's turnout to Italy's last general election because the 2013 vote took place over two days.

Some ballot glitches were reported in Palermo, Mantova and in two small towns of Alessandria, where the wrong ballots were delivered. The ANSA news agency said the vote in those towns was suspended when election officials discovered the error after some 40 ballots were cast.

Some Palermo polling stations opened late because of the ballot glitch.

Steve Bannon, the nationalist architect of Donald Trump's White House campaign, says Italy's election is "crucial" for the global populist movement and that if populists don't win now they will in the future.

In an interview published in Sunday's Corriere della Sera, Bannon says he came to Rome to "observe" the election. He says he's particularly keen to see how the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and anti-immigrant, nationalist League party fare.

He said: "I think if they create a coalition among all the populists it would be fantastic, it would terrify Brussels and pierce it in its heart."

Bannon, who crafted Trump's anti-Muslim ban and backs a U.S. border wall with Mexico, said Italians have had enough of Europe's migrant crisis. Describing himself as a "proud Catholic," he said Pope Francis had nevertheless "exacerbated the migrant crisis" with his call for Europe to open its arms to refugees.

He said: "The pope is infallible in doctrine, but not in church policy in the world."

The outgoing president of Italy's Senate is voicing concern that some polling stations in Palermo were still closed hours into election day due to delays in getting proper ballots delivered.

In a tweet Sunday, Pietro Grasso said such delays and errors were "unacceptable." Grasso, who broke away from the Democratic Party to start his own leftist party, said he hoped the problem wouldn't discourage people from voting.

Overnight, Palermo authorities had to reprint about 200,000 ballots because the wrong ones were delivered. That delayed the opening of some stations.

In Rome, meanwhile, voters complained that the ballots were too complicated to understand.

Sister Vincenza, voting at a polling station on Rome's Aventine hill, said the process was "all mixed up." She said: "You feel as if you have gone there prepared but it is not that clear. Anyway, I have to go to Mass."

-- This item was corrected to show that Grasso's party is left-wing, not centre-left.

The first glitches in Italy's closely watched elections have started to be reported.

In Palermo, 200,000 ballots had to be reprinted overnight because the wrong ones were delivered. In Mantova, where voters are also voting for the leadership of the Lombardy region, the logo of the Democratic Party regional candidate was printed erroneously.

The ANSA news agency said there would likely be court challenges to the outcome as a result.

More than 46 million Italians were voting Sunday in a general election that is being closely watched to determine if Italy would succumb to the populist, anti-establishment and far-right sentiment that has swept through much of Europe in recent years.

Polls have opened in Italy in in one of the most uncertain elections in years.

Sunday's vote is one being watched to see if Italy will succumb to the populist, euroskeptic and far-right sentiment that has swept through Europe in recent years.

The campaign was marked by the prime-time airing of neofascist rhetoric and anti-migrant violence that culminated in a shooting spree last month against six Africans. While the centre-right coalition that capitalized on the anti-migrant sentiment led the polls, analysts predict the likeliest outcome is a hung parliament.

More than 46 million Italians were eligible to vote from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. (0600-2200GMT), including Italians abroad who already mailed in ballots. Exit polls were expected after polls closed, projections sometime thereafter and consolidated results Monday.</s>A surge for populist and far-right parties in Italy's election could result in a hung parliament with a right-wing alliance likely to win the most votes but no majority after a campaign dominated by anger against immigration.

The projections based on early results on Monday also showed the far-right League party ahead of media mogul Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy) party within the right-wing coalition in Sunday's vote.

That raises the prospect of League leader Matteo Salvini, who has promised to shut down Roma camps, deport hundreds of thousands of migrants and tackle the "danger" of Islam, becoming Italy's next prime minister.

The eurosceptic, anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which has drawn support from Italians fed up with traditional parties and a lack of economic opportunity, was predicted to come second to the coalition.

The boost for far-right and populist parties has drawn comparisons to Britain's vote to leave the European Union and the rise of US President Donald Trump.

"The European Union is going to have a bad night," Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front, tweeted.

Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage congratulated the Five Star Movement, his allies in the European Parliament, "for topping the poll" as Italy's biggest single party.

Resentment at the hundreds of thousands of migrant arrivals in Italy in recent years fired up the campaign, along with frustration about social inequalities.

"These are historic results," Giancarlo Giorgetti, deputy head of the League, told reporters in Milan.

Alessandro Di Battista of the Five Star Movement, said: "Everyone is going to have to come and speak to us".

The ruling centre-left Democratic Party, which has struggled to get across its pro-European message of gradual economic recovery, was left trailing.

"This is a very clear defeat for us," Michele Martina, a minister in the outgoing government, told reporters.

Andrea Marcucci, one of the party's lawmakers, said: "The populists have won and the Democratic Party has lost".

The projections by public broadcaster Rai showed the right-wing alliance winning 35.5 percent of the vote, including 15.8 percent for the League and 14.5 percent for Forza Italia, with the Five Star Movement at 32.5 percent and the centre-left at 23.1 percent.

If no party or coalition wins an overall majority, the projected results leave Italy with few options.

One is a an "anti-system" post-election pact between the Five Star Movement and the League -- a prospect that has spooked foreign investors and European capitals.

The other would be a minority Five Star government, which could prove highly unstable. A third option would be a temporary government and new elections.

Maurizio Molinari, editor of La Stampa daily, said the victory of "anti-system forces" was a first for Europe.

In L'Espresso weekly's online edition Marco Damilano wrote: "On the night of March 4, the winners are (Five Star Movement leader Luigi) Di Maio and Salvini".

"And there are two catastrophic losers: Berlusconi, the old man on his last lap, and his young heir (Democratic Party leader) Matteo Renzi."

Il Fatto Quotidiano ran a front-page headline saying simply: "Everything will change".

Berlusconi, a flamboyant three-time former prime minister, cannot hold elected office because of a fraud conviction but has put forward European Parliament President Antonio Tajani as his prime ministerial nominee.

The billionaire, who won his first election in 1994, has returned to the limelight at the age of 81 despite a career overshadowed by sex scandals and legal woes.

He was ambushed as he cast his vote in Milan by a topless woman from the Femen activist group who had "Berlusconi, you have expired" scrawled across her torso.

The campaign was a gloomy one marred by clashes between far-right and anti-fascist activists, as well as a racist shooting spree by an extreme right sympathiser last month.

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon -- the man who helped Trump ride a populist wave to power -- characterised the election as "pure populism".

"The Italian people have gone farther, in a shorter period of time, than the British did for Brexit and the Americans did for Trump," Bannon, who was visiting Italy for the election, told the New York Times.

Bannon called a possible post-election deal between the Five Star Movement and the League "the ultimate dream".

In the event of a stalemate, President Sergio Mattarella will have the key role of choosing a prime ministerial nominee who could command a majority in parliament but negotiations could take weeks or even months.

"The verdict in Italy is always the same: the country is in constant instability. Being ungovernable has become endemic," said Claudio Tito, columnist for La Repubblica.</s>Italy’s hung parliament and the prospect of a government in Rome led by one of two populist parties has sent ripples of concern through European capitals.

The election, which saw the dramatic strengthening of Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant forces, and deepened Italy’s north-south divisions, seemed to confirm the irresistible rise of right-wing populism across Europe in the wake of the economic crisis.

The maverick Eurosceptic Five Star Movement won most support, securing 32 per cent of the vote, while the anti-immigrant Lega also emerged as a major force. Their leaders – Five Star’s Luigi Di Maio (31) and Lega’s Matteo Salvini (44) – were both staking claims to lead the country last night.

Once again, a European election has delivered an inconclusive result. This time, however, the parties struggling to form a government are not the establishment but the rebels. Unlike in Germany or the Netherlands, there is little chance that the mainstream parties will be able to put together a ruling coalition to keep populist forces out of government.

The election will almost certainly bring into the European Council a leader who sympathises with increasingly authoritarian Poland and Hungary and shift the political balance against further EU integration.

Government formation is likely to take several months.</s>The Five Star Movement (M5S) was started by Giuseppe Peiro Grillo, also known as ‘Beppe’, a popular comedian and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web entrepreneur, in 2009. They created the very popular blog and social networking site Meetup.com. The aim was to bring together supporters and activists, campaign on local issues and field candidates for elections. The movement was created as a new form of direct democracy and a reaction against Italy’s corrupt politics.

Federico Faloppa, Director of Italian Studies at University of Reading, said: “The M5S is variously considered populist, anti-establishment, environmentalist, anti-globalist, Eurosceptic, and anti-vaccines, and it escapes the traditional left vs right paradigm.” In 2009, the ‘National Five Star Movement’ was launched and the party ran in the regional elections in 2010 and 2011, where they obtained notable results. Since then they have constantly and rapidly grown and in the 2013 general election, they were the second most voted for party and were the most voted for party for the Chamber of Deputies - they took 25 percent of the vote. However as the party refused to form a coalition, M5S obtained just 109 deputies out of 630 and the centre-right coalition gained more seats in parliament.

In European Parliament, the M5S is part of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group along with UKIP, however in 2017 Grillo proposed to join the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, but the party was refused. M5S has been openly against the EU, but has now become more Eurosceptic. Leader Luigi Di Maio, said M5S does not want to quit the European Union but wants to change the rules. M5S had initially signalled a possible exit from the single currency but as the election loomed Di Maio ditched the threat to leave the Euro.

The party leader told Italian television: “I believe it is no longer the right moment for Italy to leave the Euro.” Dr Faloppa said: “From the beginning, they have been vocally Eurosceptical and against the Euro, by proposing a referendum to leave the currency, but in the last few months - especially to reassure European partners and investors, in case the Movement wins the election - Luigi DI Maio has dropped the anti-Euro rhetoric, and softened the party's position towards the EU.” Paolo Cossarini, teaching fellow in Politics and International Relations at Loughborough University said in preparation for the 2018 general election, M5S have instead focused more on corruption, local government and internal affairs in Italy. Earlier this year, co-founder Grillo stepped aside from the party ahead of the Italian election.

Some have speculated the move was to bolster the party’s chance of winning before the general election. He had been distancing himself from the party for quite some time and had avoided appearances at the party’s events and in September Di Maio was elected as leader. Dr Cossarini said: “Grillo started to be criticised over the last year. He thought it would be better to step aside, not to be the spokesperson or the leader. “It would be better to leave it to Di Maio and the new generation to bring fresh air into Italian politics, and also because he felt they were losing the connection to the young people in Italy.” The Five Star Movement was leading the latest opinion polls, and the latest survey show the party gaining between 27% and 30% of the vote.</s>The results were not just a disconcerting measure of Italy’s mood but also a harbinger of the troubles that may yet lay ahead for Europe. Far-right and populist forces appeared to gain more than 50 percent of the vote in Italy, where the economy has lagged, migration has surged and many are seething at those in power.

But with no one party or coalition appearing to win enough support to form a government, the election offered up an outcome familiar here: a muddle. It may take weeks of haggling to sort out who will lead the next government, and who will be in it.

One thing seemed clear, however: Any government will be difficult to form without the insurgent Five Star Movement, a web-based, populist party less than a decade old. The party was poised to become the country’s biggest vote-getter, winning about a third of the votes cast — its best showing ever.

“A triumph of the Five Star Movement,” Alessandro Di Battista, a leader of the party, said on Sunday night. “Everybody has to come talk to us.”

Roberto D’Alimonte, a political scientist at Luiss University in Rome, said that if the results held, the Five Star Movement would find itself in “a pivotal position.” With previously solid-seeming coalitions now fluid, he said, Five Star was in the driver’s seat.

The question will be who will join it.

The projections also showed big gains for the far-right League, a formerly northern-based secessionist party run by Matteo Salvini. He has been unapologetic about his use of inflammatory language about migrants, calling for their expulsion.

Mr. Salvini’s party gained about 18 percent of votes, according to preliminary results. That was more, remarkably, than the party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, his coalition partner and the personification of the conservative mainstream, which won just 14 percent of ballots cast, the early results showed.

Taken together, the votes cast for the Five Star Movement, the League and its post-fascist coalition partner, the Brothers of Italy party, run by Giorgia Meloni, depicted a dark mood in Italy and deep frustration with the governing, pro-Europe, Democratic Party of the center left.

The Democratic Party suffered its poorest showing ever in national elections, continuing a Europe-wide collapse of the left, and putting into immediate question the future of its once-promising leader, former prime minister Matteo Renzi.

One glimmer of hope for Mr. Renzi is the possibility of forming a grand coalition with Mr. Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia party. But even together they lacked the numbers to form a government.

Nadia Urbinati, a political theorist at Columbia University and the author of the forthcoming book “The Age of Populism,” said the country had been “split in two” between traditional establishment voters on the right and left, and everyone else.

The new Italian political landscape does not mean that the anti-establishment forces will get the chance to govern together, or that they even want to. But their strength at the polls was a strong indicator of voter anger after a prolonged period of economic stagnation and the arrival of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants from Africa and elsewhere.

For years, migrants who survived the perilous crossing of the sea arrived on Italy’s southern coasts. The country’s center-left government sought to strike a balance between a humane response and enforcement of its borders.

Italy pleaded with other countries in Europe to help share the burden, both by patrolling the waters and accepting a portion of the migrants sheltered in reception centers. But its neighbors, including France, locked their doors and the migrants, many of whom felt stuck in Italy, became an open political nerve.

The center-left government eventually reduced the arrivals through deals in Libya and further south. But by then the damage was done, and Europe, which is deeply wary of the Five Star Movement and the League, may now be about to pay the consequences.

“We are surely in front of an extraordinary result,” Alfonso Bonafede, a member of Parliament from the Five Star party said soon after the first exit polls at a conference room in a Rome hotel. “We can say historic even. The Five Star Movement will be the pillar of the next legislature.”

Mr. Berlusconi, Mr. Salvini and Ms. Meloni ran together with the idea of governing together. With their failure to reach the 40 percent threshold to claim power, it was not clear what would happen.

Supporters of Mr. Berlusconi argued after midnight on Monday on television that his coalition had essentially won the election. But Mr. Berlusconi himself did not appear to be the winner, even within his coalition.

That Mr. Salvini appeared to win more support than Mr. Berlusconi, a media mogul with three television channels and decades in government and business, was stunning.

Not long ago, Mr. Salvini was insulting southern Italians, saying they smelled bad. But he shed his party’s northern roots and drew on the frustration over illegal immigration to appeal to those he once mocked. His campaign was rife with anti-migrant and anti-Muslim language.

That’s what voters seemed to like.

Giulia De Virgilio and her husband, Vico Vicenzi, both 72-year-old lawyers, walked out of a polling station in Rome’s historic center on Sunday and said they had cast their votes for Mr. Salvini, despite usually voting for the left.

Their comments suggested that Mr. Salvini’s efforts to transform his party from a northern secessionist movement into a force appealing to Italians everywhere had paid off. He convinced the couple that illegal migrants posed an existential threat, especially after a young woman was killed and dismembered in a central Italian town in January. The police arrested Nigerian immigrants in the killing.

“They cut out her heart, her guts — they are cannibals,” said Ms. De Virgilio. She said, “Nigerians are drug dealers.”

That anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as a strong dose of euroskepticism, swept Italy this election season.

The Five Star Movement appealed to voters on both the left and the right, especially in the country’s poorer southern regions. Young voters flocked to their throw-out-the-bums message.

Five Star’s ability to elide hard positions on controversial issues such as immigration and leaving the eurozone, as well as its support for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, made it a difficult target for its political enemies.

Both Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Renzi characterized Five Star as the greatest threat to Italy to come along in ages. But now it is Italy’s most popular party, and it has a good deal of leverage going into consultations with President Sergio Mattarella, who will ultimately decide the shape and content of the next government.

The newly formed Parliament will meet for the first time on March 23.

“Bottom line: Italy is far from having sorted its longstanding problems, and now it will have new ones,” said Lorenzo Codogno, founder and chief economist of LC Macro Advisors. “Be prepared for long and complex negotiations that will take months.”</s>ROME: A surge for populist and far-right parties in Italy´s election could result in a hung parliament with a right-wing alliance likely to win the most votes but no majority after a campaign dominated by anger against immigration.

The projections based on early results on Monday also showed the far-right League party ahead of media mogul Silvio Berlusconi´s Forza Italia (Go Italy) party within the right-wing coalition in Sunday´s vote.

That raises the prospect of League leader Matteo Salvini, who has promised to shut down Roma camps, deport hundreds of thousands of migrants and tackle the "danger" of Islam, becoming Italy´s next prime minister.

The eurosceptic, anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which has drawn support from Italians fed up with traditional parties and a lack of economic opportunity, was predicted to come second to the coalition. The boost for far-right and populist parties has drawn comparisons to Britain´s vote to leave the European Union and the rise of US President Donald Trump.

"The European Union is going to have a bad night," Marine Le Pen, leader of France´s National Front, tweeted. Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage congratulated the Five Star Movement, his allies in the European Parliament, "for topping the poll" as Italy´s biggest single party. Resentment at the hundreds of thousands of migrant arrivals in Italy in recent years fired up the campaign, along with frustration about social inequalities. "These are historic results," Giancarlo Giorgetti, deputy head of the League, told reporters in Milan.

Alessandro Di Battista of the Five Star Movement, said: "Everyone is going to have to come and speak to us". The ruling centre-left Democratic Party, which has struggled to get across its pro-European message of gradual economic recovery, was left trailing.

"This is a very clear defeat for us," Michele Martina, a minister in the outgoing government, told reporters. Andrea Marcucci, one of the party´s lawmakers, said: "The populists have won and the Democratic Party has lost". The projections by public broadcaster Rai showed the right-wing alliance winning 35.5 percent of the vote, including 15.8 percent for the League and 14.5 percent for Forza Italia, with the Five Star Movement at 32.5 percent and the centre-left at 23.1 percent.

If no party or coalition wins an overall majority, the projected results leave Italy with few options. One is a an "anti-system" post-election pact between the Five Star Movement and the League -- a prospect that has spooked foreign investors and European capitals. The other would be a minority Five Star government, which could prove highly unstable. A third option would be a temporary government and new elections. Maurizio Molinari, editor of La Stampa daily, said the victory of "anti-system forces" was a first for Europe.</s>It’s crunch time in Italy this weekend, when voters head to the polls in a general election with the potential to upend financial markets and spark political turmoil in the eurozone.

On election day, March 4, Italian polling stations open at 7 a.m. local time, or 1 a.m. Eastern Time in the U.S. They close at 11 p.m. local time, and the first exit polls should be published immediately after. The votes are expected to be fully counted around 2 p.m. on Monday local time, or 8 a.m. Eastern, but first actual results could be released in the early hours of Monday, according to media reports.

Read: Here’s why this is the most important week on Europe’s political calendar

In the 2013 general election in Italy, the first exit polls correctly indicated the Democratic Party had enough votes to win. However, those polls overstated the support for the Democrats and underestimated the votes for the populist, euroskeptic 5 Star Movement.

Under Italian law, opinion polls are not allowed in the final two weeks before the vote. The most recent readings ahead of the cut-off date for Sunday’s ballot point to a tight race between the three parties: the 5 Star Movement, the ruling Democratic Party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.

The 5 Star Movement is in the lead, and a win for the left-leaning populist has been flagged as a potential risk to the eurozone. However, the party has recently backtracked on its harsh anti-EU rhetoric and has retracted its pledge to hold an EU referendum.

Additionally, a new Italian election law that favors coalitions is seen as making it highly unlikely that the 5 Star Movement will end up running the government.

Read: Italian election: Stocks to buy and avoid ahead of the March 4 vote

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A hung parliament, where no party has a majority, is currently seen as the most likely outcome. That would then probably lead to lots of wrangling over forming a coalition, or new elections. Either could spark a period of political uncertainty in the eurozone, even if in Italy it eventually ends in a broad coalition with a continuation of the same policies.

“Evidence that political uncertainty has become a key force for the currency markets comes from the performance of the euro EURUSD, +0.4320% over the past twelve months,” said Simon Derrick, chief currency strategist at BNY Mellon, in a note. “This suggests that serious attention needs to be paid to next month’s Italian elections."

Read: These 3 factors could wallop the euro and pound

Also on Sunday, Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party announces the result of its vote to decide whether to join a grand coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel and her center-right Christian Democratic Union. The vote could end five months of political uncertainty in Europe’s largest economy. The time of the release of the SPD result is not known.</s>About 50% of Italians who voted in national elections on Sunday supported populist parties that were once considered fringe, according to early election exit polls and voter projections.

The most likely result of the national election seemed either a win by the centre-right coalition headed by Silvio Berlusconi, the 81-year-old former prime minister, or a hung parliament in which populist parties – the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the xenophobic Northern League – would have considerable influence in the creation of a new government.

The exit polls showed Berlusconi’s coalition – which includes the Northern League – winning up to 36% of the vote, a result that could potentially help the billionaire media magnate clinch a fourth election victory under a complicated new Italian election law. 



Analysts were also poring over early data that suggested another potential political upset: Matteo Salvini, the firebrand head of La Lega – as the League is now known – beating out Berlusconi within the centre-right coalition.

Under a “gentleman’s agreement” ,whoever emerges as the winner between the two will choose the next prime minister, if the coalition were to win a majority.



Berlusconi is not eligible to serve personally because of a previous tax conviction, but said he would choose Antonio Tajani, the European parliament president, as prime minister.

Two facts seemed indisputable: that Italian voters, who have traditionally been risk averse, were ready to ditch the big mainstream parties, and that the centre-left party headed by Matteo Renzi had an abysmal election.

“The results are still very unclear,” said Giovanni Orsina, a politics professor at Luiss University in Rome. “The odds are still that there is no majority in parliament. But what is clear is that the centre left were punished. Italians didn’t buy the story of Italy getting better. At least the majority of them did not.”

The Italian economy has significantly improved in since the dark days of the 2011 economic crisis and the PD has taken strong – and controversial – measures to try to stem the flow of migrants into Italy in recent months, but the party was hammered regardless – in part because of the prevailing view that Renzi is out of touch, untrustworthy, and that change has not happened fast enough under his leadership.

Whatever the final outcome, the exit polls appeared to reveal a monumental shift in a majority of Italian voters.

If the centre-right fails to clinch a majority, then the Five Star Movement, an anti-establishment party that was founded nine years ago by former comedian Beppe Grillo, will emerge as the single most powerful party in Italy and decisive in a future coalition, having won up to 31% of the vote, according to early results that were not yet final.

Among other controversial views, the Five Star has expressed deep reservations about the euro – until recently it promised to call a referendum on Italy’s participation in the eurozone – questioned Italy’s role in Nato, and does not support mandatory vaccinations.

In the likely event of a hung parliament, there are several parliamentary combinations that could be cobbled together to win a majority of seats, many of which would pair unlikely bedfellows.

Under some scenarios, the Five Star Movement could combine with the Democratic party to get to above 50%.

“Building a majority in parliament will be hard if not impossible. An extended period of horse-trading among the parties is next,” said Wolfango Piccoli, an analyst at Teneo Intelligence. Parliamentary maths could also allow a majority to emerge through a combination of the Five Star Movement and the Northern League.

But Piccoli said chances of such a coalition deal were “very low”. While both parties are eurosceptic, pro-Kremlin, and anti-free trade, the Northern League’s view are far to the right, particularly on the migration issue, while many Five Star voters identify with the Italian left.
Italy faces a period of political instability after the results of the general election are almost complete. The populist Five Star Movement (M5S) is projected to be the largest party in the Italian Parliament with 32% of the vote. The party has long stated its hostility towards forming a coalition government.