(ANSA) - A new poll confirmed on Monday that Italy's center-left opposition maintains a healthy lead over the center-right coalition of Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Taken by the Ekma Research group between November 24 and 25, the poll found that were elections held today the center left would receive 52.9% of the vote compared to 44.8% for the government parties.
The poll contradicted Berlusconi's recent claim that his House of Liberties coalition was running neck-in-neck with the center-left Union alliance.
Speaking last week at a campaign rally for the center-right candidate in Messina's by-election, Berlusconi said that "all the polls which the Left has made public and show us losing have been proven wrong by a poll carried out by a group which has always guessed it right: Euromedia."
"This poll put us practically equal. The House of Liberties and other center-right forces which could never ally with the center left are at 48.6%, while the center left is at 48.7%," the premier said.
In Monday's Ekma poll, the center-right would rise to 47.5% if it were joined by independent parties which refuse to ally with the center-left, including the 0.3% of Italians who would vote for Gianni De Michelis' New Socialist Party and the 1% of Italian voters supporting Bobo Craxi's Socialist formation.
The Emka poll was based on 1000 phone interviews.
