When he proclaimed his victory, Romano Prodi seemed about as pleased as someone who had just been convicted of a crime. "Vinto" -- we won -- he mumbled into the microphone. A short time later, Prodi was already talking about "constitutional reform" and the need for growth.

It didn't exactly sound like the end of an era.

Romano Prodi will likely lead Italy's next government. German Chancellor Angela Merkel even called him on Thursday to give him her congratulations. But instead of being elected in a landslide, as he had hoped, Prodi's move into power comes as a result of a gentle, quivering swing of the political pendulum. Instead of saying "Basta!" to Berlusconi in last Sunday's election, Italy's vote was an expression of its tentative, "let's see" attitude -- prompted in part by the fact that the 66-year-old Prodi has about as much charisma as a cup of chamomile tea.

Securing a handful of votes more than one's rival isn't exactly a victory. With its 49.8 percent of the vote, the center-left Unione alliance barely edged out the Berlusconi camp, which garnered 49.7 percent of the votes. The biggest winners within Prodi's nine-party alliance are the neo-communists and their leader, Fausto Bertinotti, whose disloyalty already brought Prodi's first administration to a premature end in 1998.

And now Prodi faces the task of forming a government with nine disparate coalition partners and not even a party of his own to back him up. In addition, his predecessor will be leaving him a series of disappointing welcome wagon gifts, including a national deficit, reform processes that have barely gotten underway and an overgrazed field of political dreams. In light of the gloomy situation, former President Francesco Cossiga even suggested that both Prodi and Berlusconi resign, so that Italy can find itself once again.

The country is divided into two equally large camps that passionately mistrust one other. For this reason, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, to everyone's surprise, opted not to ask Prodi to form a new government before the president's term ends in mid-May -- an option that is possible under Italy's constitution.

The political camps should first come together and agree on a successor for Ciampi. Possible candidates include former Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and Giorgio Napolitano, an honorary senator for life. Once things have calmed down, the new head of state would then convene a new government. This would give Berlusconi about two additional months in office.

The country is prolonging its farewell to the Berlusconi era, almost as if the two -- Italy and Berlusconi -- couldn't bear to separate.

Prodi's alliance gained its slim majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Italy's parliament, with only 25,225 votes, a 0.06-percent victory. And it is only as a result of an election law, which, ironically enough, the Prodi camp had vehemently opposed, that this handful of additional votes for the center-left coalition turned into a healthy majority of 348 to 281 seats in parliament.

In the end, it was absentee voters who ensured that Italy didn't descend into a state of mayhem. Interestingly enough, it was the Berlusconi administration that enacted legislation allowing Italians to vote by mail. But for Italians living abroad, it must have been embarrassing to constantly be taken to task for Berlusconi's gaffes. Perhaps this was what prompted a majority of the 3 million overseas Italians to unexpectedly vote for the center-left alliance, thereby preventing Berlusconi's alliance of parties from gaining a majority in the Senate, Italy's second legislative body. Only Italian emigrants in the United States continued to support their "Don Coglioni."

The Prodi alliance now has a tiny majority of 158 to 156 seats in the Senate. Without the absentee votes, a Prodi government would have been forced to push through its legislative agenda against resistance in the Senate. Under recent constitutional reforms the body, elected from Italy's regions, has become increasingly similar to Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat. However, it still has the power to approve or reject any new legislation.

An embarrassing defeat

In truth, the narrow victory is an embarrassing defeat for the left, which has rallied around Prodi. Despite five years of Berlusconism, despite conflicts of interest and ongoing coercion of the judiciary and despite inflation, Italy's leftists did not win a plebiscite against the powerful Berlusconi.

His party, Forza Italia, remains the most powerful political force in the country. Like former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Berlusconi has defied trends with his fits of rage, empty tax promises and gloomy warnings against the communists. After five years in power, he has not succeeded in tying a similar sentiment of change to himself as in the previous parliamentary election. Nevertheless, the economically and political critical regions of northern Italy, as well as Sicily and the south, voted for the current government once again.

Even as late as Friday, Berlusconi, who is still prime minister, refused to concede victory to Prodi. He explained that there will still too many questions about the election results, and that it was irresponsible of Prodi and his supporters to begin celebrating his victory.

On election night, Forza Italia announced that it planned to do things the American way, at least when it came to the aftermath of the 2000 presidential campaign between George W. Bush and Al Gore in Florida. "We will recount every single vote," Berlusconi's spokesman said. But this is more of a consolation than a strategy for the Berlusconi camp. According to Italian election law, a panel of judges has the final say in the case of the 43,028 "disputed" ballots in the parliamentary election. Still, it is unlikely that all ballots will suddenly turn out to be Berlusconi votes -- and the election outcome would only change if they were.

Under these circumstances, it comes as no surprise that the idea of "la Grande Coalizione" -- the Grand Coalition -- similar to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition, has become the most popular topic on talk shows. Just as the Germans once yearned to be in the country south of the Alps, some Italian politicians are suddenly transfigured by conditions in Germany, the country of blossoming coalitions.

Even Silvio Berlusconi surprised his supporters when he said: "Perhaps we should look to the example of another large European country, combine forces and govern by mutual agreement." Until this point, he had practically upgraded a personal loss to the level of national catastrophe, and had even dubbed anyone who wasn't smart enough to vote for him a "complete idiot."

Of course, Berlusconi knows that Prodi cannot accept his proposal for achieving national unity. Indeed, his coalition partners would promptly abandon him if he did.

Berlusconi and Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini now expect a new election within a year. They doubt that Prodi's qualities as a prime minister will be sufficient to hold together his slim majority past the end of 2006. Until then, they hope, the "House of Freedoms" can pull itself together to form a somewhat more respectable liberal-conservative party.

For his part, Prodi categorically rejects any cooperation with Berlusconi, even in the context of informal round table discussions. "We will govern for five years," he says, promising to hold together both his centrifugal coalition and all of Italy.