Mamma mia. Let’s hope the Italian left realizes history is repeating itself and beats back the Right-Wing attempt to steal this election, retroactively, like the Bushies did in 2000.

Eerie Historical Parallels:

- Wafer-thin margin: Romano Prodi’s Center-Left Coalition officially won by 49.8% against Berlusconi’s Center-Right coalition’s 49.7% according to official results. The difference for one of Italy’s two chambers of Parliament is 25,000 votes.

- Results differ from exit polls and surveys taken during the last weeks of the campaign: these consistently showed Berlusconi a solid 5 percentage points behind.

- The media questions the exit polls instead of the election results: La Repubblica: “Like never before, the exit polls reveal themselves to be deceptive”.

- Pundits decry an “Italy divided” :

An Italy split down the middle, cleaved into two indomitable and irreconcilable halves, politically, culturally and socially… The trap has sprung. And it’s like the poisoned sting of a scorpion on the live flesh of a country that from today will perhaps be unable to have a new government, although it will not be able to have the old one either.

OK, the following isn’t exactly a parallel to the 2000 US elections, but it’s still eerie. In this case the Left won according to official results. The common pattern is one of Right-Wingers refusing to admit defeat at all costs.

- The Right-Wingers demand a recount:

Paolo Bonaiuti, Berlusconi’s spokesperson, doesn’t agree: “We contest the victory of the Center-Left Coalition, we need a scrupulous verification of the votes”
…
According to data provided by the Center-Right Coalition, 500,000 votes were “annulled”. This, according to the Right, is enough to question the whole election.

As far as I can tell Berlusconi still hasn’t conceded. Have another shot of espresso and stay tuned…