Rome, April 13: Italians began voting on Sunday in general elections likely to usher conservative Silvio Berlusconi into 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.

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

Voting began Sunday in a glum mood, reflected by press comment.

"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, director of the daily La Repubblica's online edition.

Il Giornale, owned by Berlusconi's media group, on Sunday published a series of pictures showing Prodi morphing into Veltroni as a communist relic.

The business daily Il Sole-24 Ore opined that Italy "is looking for stability and a vision of the future," while the leading daily Corriere della Sera warned that the victor in the polls would "inherit a battered country, stagnant and lacking modern infrastructure."

Italy is "full of fear and individual indifference, a little depressed and looking for reassurance," wrote the publisher of the communist newspaper Il Manifesto, adding that the candidates had "simulated" a contest but had similar platforms -- "some almost identical."