AFP, ROME - Italians went to the polls Sunday in general elections likely to return conservative Silvio Berlusconi to the prime minister's office for a third time at the expense of new centre-left flagbearer Walter Veltroni.

Against a backdrop of a stumbling economy, years of political instability and general malaise, some one-third of Italy's 47 million voters remained undecided when the last permitted surveys were conducted two weeks ago.

The surveys gave the flamboyant Berlusconi an edge of six or seven percent going into the vote, called after the collapse in January of the centre-left government of Romano Prodi. Berlusconi, a self-made billionaire at the head of a vast media empire who goes by the nickname Il Cavaliere (the knight), had enjoyed a double-digit lead over Veltroni as campaigning began in February.

As the race tightened, chances rose that the 71-year-old Berlusconi may fail to secure a viable majority in the Senate -- or even fall short in the upper house thanks to Italy's complex electoral law that the media magnate himself crafted ahead of the 2006 elections.

Veltroni, 52, urged voters to "turn the page" on the older generation represented by Berlusconi, who for his part has cast Veltroni as a communist relic. Mindful of Prodi's tumultuous two years at the helm of an unwieldy coalition that won by a handful of votes in 2006, Veltroni, a former Marxist, spurned the far left as well as the centre when he set up his new American-style Democratic Party (PD) last year.

Voters at a polling station in central Rome on Sunday expressed hesitation and frustration over the choices before them. Roberto Pavoncello, 49, said he voted for Veltroni simply because "he's new. I hope he can do something for Italy" -- starting with electoral reform. "It was pretty hard to vote," said first-time voter Dario Martelli, 19. "I voted for the middle path, not the right or left."

The centrist Union of Christian Democrats (UDC) led by Pier Ferdinando Casini "is probably better for the country," he said. Another voter aged around 30 said Italy was stagnating and despaired that Berlusconi was poised for a comeback. "There's no change in this country. "Now there's an enormous chance at power (for Berlusconi who) is made of Teflon." But another voter said Berlusconi deserved another stint as premier because of unfinished business.

"Some things weren't done" in the conservative leader's last mandate from 2001 to 2006, he said. The glum mood was reflected in press comment. Leading daily Corriere della Sera warned that the victor in the polls would "inherit a battered country, stagnant and lacking modern infrastructure."

The communist newspaper Il Manifesto ran a cartoon titled "last-minute hesitations" showing a voter holding his nose. "Between comic book and melodrama, like the script of a bad film that ... never ends, these Italian elections of 2008 seem to the outside observer even less comprehensible and more depressing than those that preceded them," lamented Vittorio Zucconi of the daily La Repubblica.

Berlusconi's People of Freedom merges his old Forza Italia party and the neo-fascist National Alliance, and is allied with the populist, anti-immigration Northern League for the 2008 vote. Veltroni's PD is a merger of the former communist Democrats of the Left and the centrist Catholic Daisy party. Further to the left is the Rainbow Left, a coalition of the Greens and two communist parties. A large chunk remains in the centre, mainly the UDC, which split from Berlusconi.

The possibility of a hung parliament led Casini to say Friday he could take up the premiership to become a referee between the two large blocs. The next government will have to act quickly to resolve a waste disposal crisis in the southern Naples region and clinch an elusive deal with Air France-KLM to take over the failing Alitalia airline or, likely, oversee its liquidation. Meanwhile the economy grew just 1.5 percent last year, and the outlook for 2008 is bleaker still at 0.6 percent.

Polling stations opened on Sunday at 8:00 am (0600 GMT), with voting continuing to 10:00 pm. They reopen on Monday at 7:00 am for a final eight hours of voting. Exit polls and preliminary results are expected soon after polls close at 3:00 pm (1300 GMT) on Monday, though the interior ministry said last week that vote-counting would be slower than usual because of stepped-up scrutiny.

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