Pizza's Party Could Stop Poll

Italy's politics are rarely less than disordered. But last night they risked reaching a new level of chaos after one of the country's top courts handed down a ruling that could mean the postponement of the general election later this month.

On Tuesday, a small party secured a judgment guaranteeing its right to stand. Since the Christian Democracy party, led by Giuseppe Pizza, will have less than two weeks to convince voters of its program, the interior minister in the outgoing center-left government, Giuliano Amato, said he could not rule out "a postponement of the election".

Christian Democracy had been banned from the campaign on the grounds its symbol was too like that of the Union of Christian and Center Democrats (UDC). Pizza argues he and his party, not the UDC, are the true heirs of the old Christian Democrat movement.

Silvio Berlusconi, who is expected to regain power at the election, joined other political leaders in calling for Pizza to withdraw. Some of the media tycoon's rivals accused him of masterminding the entire affair.

Christian Democracy could lure voters from the UDC, whose leader quit an alliance with Berlusconi just before the campaign. A difference of a few hundred votes for the UDC could decide if Berlusconi gets an outright majority in both houses of parliament.