Italy's centre-left coalition led by Pier Luigi Bersani has scraped a narrow victory in elections to the lower house of parliament against Silvio Berlusconi, the interior ministry reported on Tuesday with almost all the ballots counted.

Workers open ballot boxes in a polling station in downtown Rome on February 25, 2013. Italy's centre-left coalition led by Pier Luigi Bersani has scraped a narrow victory in elections to the lower house of parliament against Silvio Berlusconi, the interior ministry reported on Tuesday with almost all the ballots counted.

Bersani's grouping led with 29.55 percent to the Berlusconi bloc's 29.18 percent, which with the winner's premium will hand it a majority in the lower house, although the vote in the upper house remains inconclusive.