ROME - Italians said a collective "ciao" to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, exit polls showed Monday, rejecting the brash billionaire's trademark swagger in favour of the reserved, almost bashful demeanour of centre-left leader Romano Prodi.
Love him or loathe him, Italian politics won't be the same without the media mogul whose theatrics -- some would say downright buffoonery -- dominated the public arena for five years.
He imposed his slick style on Italian politics after sweeping to power in 2001, but the famed "Midas touch" that made him Italy's richest man failed to pay dividends for Italy's ailing economy, which hit zero growth last year.
Berlusconi's virulent anti-communism got him into hot water two weeks ago when he upset China by saying communists there had historically "boiled babies".
The self-made billionaire, who likened himself to Jesus Christ during his campaign and said he was "greater than Napoleon," made the proposterous commonplace during his time at the helm of Italian politics.
Speaking to the European Parliament shortly after his election in 2001, he likened a German MEP to a Nazi concentration camp guard, and also angered Arab countries when he said Western civilization was superior to Islam. European allies rolled their eyes in exasperation, not for the last time.
Critics slammed Berlusconi for using a comfortable majority in parliament to pass laws which were tailor-made to his own business and legal interests and those of his allies.
Prior to the election, he lost the support of big business organisations and the country's leading newspapers over his failure to use his business acumen, which has helped him amass a personal fortune worth 12 billion euros, to rescue Italy's slumbering economy.
He in turn claims he has been repeatedly victimised by "red judges" out to nail him.
In one of many ephitets which eclipsed real debate in a vitriolic election campaign, Berlusconi dismissed Prodi as the "useful idiot" playing front man for the communists in his coalition.
But Berlusconi's last-minute rallying call to Italians to defend the country's traditional "Christian identity" and "family values" appears to have fallen on deaf ears, as exit polls showed voters handed Prodi's Union coalition a majority in both houses of parliament.
Berlusconi's headline-grabbing bluster included making a public vow of chastity until polling day and calling himself the Messiah of Italian politics.
Berlusconi said before the election that he would remain in politics.
"I'm never going back to my company, even if I have to leave politics," Berlusconi said in an interview 10 days ago on one of his three private television channels owned by his company Mediaset.
"I have a dream in my mind, which is to build hospitals throughout the world," he added, without elaborating.
But charges of corruption and conflict of interest which have haunted him since coming to power in 2001 refuse to go away.
Last month, prosecutors asked a judge to indict the prime minister for allegedly bribing a British lawyer to give favourable testimony in previous corruption trials.
The prime minister has been here before, having fought a long list of legal charges including tax fraud, embezzlement, false accounting and bribing a judge.
04/10/2006 13:57 GMT