By Benedetto Cataldi BBC Monitoring

The centre-left opposition is celebrating for the first time since losing control of the national government two years ago.

"The results show a centre-left landslide," Democrats of the Left leader Piero Fassino told Italian TV.

Berlusconi has played down the poll losses

"We want the country's citizens to be more and more convinced that we can govern Italy better than Berlusconi.

"This vote says that this is possible."

Claudio Scajola, the elections co-ordinator for Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, conceded defeat, but played down the significance of the polls.

"The left's triumphalism is out of place because two million people voted in this election round. So, I do not believe this can be a national political test.

"Local divisions had their part in bringing about some defeats," he said.

Mr Berlusconi, who is engaged in a tour of the Middle East, was defiant.

"The gentlemen of the left, who think that they are good at being in opposition, should be satisfied. They will remain in opposition as long as they live," he said.

Blow for Berlusconi

In the first round of local elections, last month, the centre-right lost control of the province of Rome.

Now it has also lost Friuli Venezia Giulia, a region in the north-east bordering Slovenia and Austria. Coffee magnate Riccardo Illy won 53% of the vote, defeating the Northern League's Alessandra Guerra, the centre-right candidate, who won 43%.

Controversially, the Northern League forced its candidate onto its allies in the vote for the regional council of Friuli Venezia Giulia, instead of the incumbent, Forza Italia's Renzo Tondo.

The move triggered the most serious crisis in Forza Italia's 10-year history, and led to the resignation of its national co-ordinator, Roberto Antonione, in protest.

Also, the Northern League was running alone in several constituencies and fielded its candidates against those of its coalition partners.

Unity on the left

The centre-right, however, has not only lost Friuli and Rome.

Before this double round of elections, each coalition controlled six of the 12 provinces due for re-election.

After the run-offs, seven are now controlled by the centre-left and five by the centre-right.

Likewise, of the 10 provincial capitals re-electing their municipal government, six are now controlled by the left and four by the right.

Before the vote, the figures were inverted - six towns to the right, four to the left.

If the centre-right was divided in the elections, the left opposition presented a rare display of unity, with the moderate centre-left Olive Tree coalition allied with a communist party.

"We already won [the general elections] after making a political agreement with Communist Refoundation in 1996, we won the previous local elections in 2002, we have won those ones. I believe this can be transferred to the national level," said Luciano Violante, Lower House whip for the Democrats of the Left.

Against this show of unity on the left, rifts within the ruling coalition were already exposed after the narrow defeat in the first round.

The coalition's Catholics urged a new political line of moderation while, more ominously, the right-wing National Alliance called for a verifica - a review of the government action - to be held immediately after the elections.

In Italian political jargon, a verifica is often used as an euphemism for major government reshuffles.

Mr Berlusconi can expect a rough ride when he returns from the Middle East later this week.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.