(24 Feb 2013)
1. Italian leadership candidate and former premier Silvio Berlusconi entering polling station
2. Berlusconi entering voting booth
3. Berlusconi casting vote
4. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Silvio Berlusconi, Italian leadership candidate and centre-right coalition leader:
"He who behaves with his brain and intelligence can vote just in one direction, and he behaves consequently, and then there are all the unreasonable situations. They exist and we can do nothing about it."
5. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Salvatore Martorana, Local resident:
"I think he's a good entrepreneur and he cares about people and workers. Then, about his personal things, they are just his affairs."
6. Wide of media trucks
7. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Giuseppe Gentili, Local resident:
"I think he's a figure who keeps on dividing public opinion."
8. Incumbent Italian prime minister Mario Monti approaching polling station at school
9. Monti entering polling station
10. Monti entering voting booth
11. Monti casting vote
12. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Mario Monti, incumbent Prime Minister:
"Not today ...I follow the rules...I follow the rules."
(++replying to question seeking a response to Berlusconi on Saturday broke a ban on electoral comment and described magistrates as "worse than the mafia")
13. Monti leaving polling station
STORYLINE:
Italians have gone to the polls on Sunday in a watershed parliamentary election that could shape the future of one of Europe's biggest economies.
Fellow European Union countries and investors are watching closely, as the decisions that Italy makes over the next several months promise to have a profound impact on whether Europe can decisively put out the flames of its financial crisis.
Greece's troubles in recent years were enough to spark a series of market panics.
With an economy almost 10 times the size of Greece's, Italy is simply too big a country for Europe, and the world, to see fail.
Among those voting on Sunday was Silvio Berlusconi - the billionaire media mogul who's seeking an unlikely political comeback after being forced from the premiership by Italy's debt crisis.
When he stepped down in November 2011, newspapers were writing his political obituary.
At 76, blamed for mismanaging the economy and disgraced by criminal allegations of sex with an underage prostitute, he appeared finished as a political force.
But Berlusconi has proven time and again - more than 20 years at the centre of Italian politics - that he should never be counted out.
The campaign strategy that has allowed the People of Freedom party leader to become a contender is a simple one: please the masses by throwing around cash.
"I think he's a good entrepreneur and he cares about people and workers," said one local resident and potential voter on Sunday.
"I think he's a figure who keeps on dividing public opinion," said another.
Also casting his ballot on Sunday was the incumbent, Mario Monti.
As prime minister, he is widely credited with saving Italy from financial ruin - but is trailing badly as he pays the price for the suffering caused by austerity measures.
Leading the electoral pack is Pier Luigi Bersani, a former communist who has shown a pragmatic streak in supporting tough economic reforms spearheaded by incumbent Mario Monti.
Then there's the wild card: comic-turned-politician Beppe Grillo, whose protest movement against the entrenched political class has been drawing tens of thousands to rallies in piazzas across Italy.
The most recent polls show Bersani in the lead with 33 percent of the vote, against 28 percent for Berlusconi's coalition with the populist Northern League.
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
