The election victory of Italy's centre-left coalition leader Romano Prodi will stand after the interior ministry confirmed the number of disputed ballot papers is not sufficient to overturn his 24,000-vote majority.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's hopes of overturning his election loss were dashed on Friday when it emerged there were not enough disputed ballot papers to swing victory back from his rival, Romano Prodi.
"The game is over. And I'm glad," Mr Prodi told reporters. "It's time to recognise our victory so that this strange comedy can end and we can move on like we should."
But, a defiant Mr Berlusconi told a crowd of supporters shouting "Silvio! Silvio!" outside his Rome residence: "We are carrying on. We will resist."
He refused to concede after the centre-left opposition won a razor-thin majority in the April 9-10 election, demanding a check of "disputed" ballots - papers on which the voting intention was deemed unclear by scrutineers.
But after four days of political stalemate, the Interior Ministry said the number of ballots in question for the lower house of parliament was 2,131, not enough to overturn Prodi's 24,000-vote majority.
The ministry said in a statement it had made a mistake when it initially estimated there were 43,028 disputed ballots.
In a letter to Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Mr Berlusconi slammed Mr Prodi for declaring victory and reiterated calls for a coalition between the right and left, something Prodi has rejected, saying he has a mandate to govern on his own.
"We are at a standstill, a situation in which, at least based on the number of votes, there are neither winners nor losers," Mr Berlusconi said in the letter, to be published in the newspaper's Saturday edition.
Prodi said his bloc was ready to talk to the centre-right but that Berlusconi would have to concede defeat first.
Centre-left officials said the next step would be an official confirmation of the election results by the Court of Cassation, Italy's highest court for legal appeals. That is not expected to come before next week at the earliest, a court official said today.