Berlusconi party loses key Sicily vote

Italian ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL) on Monday lost a key regional election in Sicily seen as a barometer for national polls due in April, handing victory to a centre-left anti-Mafia candidate. With over 50 percent of votes counted, Rosario Crocetta of the Democratic Party (PD) was leading with 30.88 percent, ahead of the PDL's Sebastiano Musumeci with 24.90 percent, robbing him of what was once the centre-right's stronghold on the Mediterranean island. The outsider, the anti-politics Five Star Movement, surprised observers by garnering 18.46 percent amid rising sentiment against the established parties and anger over rampant corruption, particularly in the Mafia stronghold. "It's the first time that a candidate for the left is elected as regional governor, it's the first time that an anti-Mafia candidate wins," declared a victorious Crocetta, 61, an openly-gay campaigner against organised crime. "Today is more than an election result, it is a date with history," Crocetta, who lives under police protection after threats to his life, told journalists. Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the PD party, called the result "historic". The regional vote comes at time of deep political uncertainty in Italy, with divisions and bickering within the main parties. Frustration is also running high over waste and corruption in the recession-hit country. Italy's economic crisis is particularly acute in Sicily, which came close to bankruptcy this year, and where nearly 40 percent of young people are unemployed. Talk of the day was the success of the Five Star Movement, whose candidate Giancarlo Cancelleri -- a surveyor who has never held political office -- came in third behind the two main parties. The movement, founded by comic Beppe Grillo, advocates a "participatory democracy," and promises to tackle waste and privileges in a period of tough financial sacrifices, and has done particularly well among the young. Grillo swam across the Strait of Messina earlier this month in an election campaign stunt, and spent 17 days drumming up support for the movement in often-packed piazzas across the island. The defeat comes as a blow to the beleaguered PDL party, which has been struggling with internal divisions and embroiled in corruption scandals. The political situation was aggravated at the weekend when Berlusconi threatened to withdraw support for the government -- a move which could spark panic among markets which have placed their faith in Prime Minister Mario Monti. Berlusconi's PDL is the biggest in parliament and could force an early election if it withdraws its backing for Monti's technocrat government, but the loss in Sicily is a decisive setback. The billionaire, who was found guilty on Friday of tax fraud, had announced last week that he would not run for premier in the 2013 election, but later vowed to remain in politics to reform the justice system that found him guilty. "We left nothing out over the last few weeks: a guilty verdict for Berlusconi a few days before the vote, an overly-agitated internal debate, uncertainty over the party leadership," Musumeci commented bitterly. Political watchers said Berlusconi's attack on Monti was an attempt to garner some of the anti-establishment fever driving the Five Star Movement. Berlusconi "still has his old instincts, he knows which buttons to push. The same Beppe Grillo has been pushing for a while: anti-German sentiment, tax intolerance, unemployment and frustration," the Repubblica daily said. Others said he had done no more than hurt the PDL's chances in Sicily. The Sicily election was held early because the island's last governor, Raffaele Lombardo, was forced to resign in July after allegations of Mafia collaboration and a crisis in the public finances of the autonomous region. His predecessor, Salvatore Cuffaro, is serving a seven-year prison sentence in Rome for aiding and abetting the Mafia in its home turf in Sicily.