Romano Prodi’s Center-left coalition looked set to beat Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative forces in parliamentary elections, exit polls indicated on Monday, but projections showed the race very tight in the Senate.

Two Nexus exit polls, issued 45 minutes apart, indicated that in voting on Sunday and Monday, Prodi’s coalition had garnered between 50 and 54 percent of the vote in both the upper and lower chambers of parliament, while Berlusconi’s coalition had between 45 and 49 percent.

Projections based on 55 percent of the Nexus’ sampling vote gave Prodi’s forces 158 seats in the Senate and Berlusconi’s coalition 151. But Prodi’s majority was not assured with the margin of error at 1 to 3 percentage points and six seats chosen by Italians voting abroad unaccounted for in the projections.

The Senate and lower chamber of parliament have equal powers, and any coalition would have to control both in order to be able to govern. Both centre-Left and centre-Right leaders have said that if the two houses have differing majorities, new elections should be called.FRANCES D’EMILIO