It looks like Silvio Berlusconi's coalition has won power in Italy.Here's the latest from the Times:

''I think it was a vote against the performance of the Prodi government in the last two years,'' said Franco Pavoncello, a political science professor at Rome's John Cabot University. ''Berlusconi won because he has a strong coalition and because people feel that on the other side, the government is going to take them nowhere.''A sense of malaise hung over the elections as Italians cast ballots Sunday and Monday.Many Italians are pessimistic that the ruling class -- dominated for years by the same key figures -- can offer much chance of change. They complain about the poor state of the economy and the fact that their purchasing power has decreased.Signs of decline abound, from piles of trash in Naples, to a buffalo mozzarella heath scare that has hurt exports and hit one of the country's culinary treasures, to the faltering sale of the state airline Alitalia.

My friends in Italy certainly confirm the "malaise" -- to the point of saying that even had Veltroni won, it would have made little difference: the problems are so intractable. That's really alarming.Update:The extent of Berlusconi's triumph surprises. But what is, perhaps, most striking is the possibly radical change in the Italian political landscape. Here is the latest from the Times:

The election called just two years after Mr. Berlusconi lost to Mr. Prodi was considered one of the least exciting in memory, with many Italians doubting that either candidate could accomplish any meaningful change.But in some basic ways, the election signaled a decisive shift in a nation whose politics have been unstable because of the narrow interests of its many small parties. Mr. Veltroni, heading the new Democratic Party, the result of a merger of the two largest center-left parties, had refused to run with far-left parties, as Mr. Prodi had done.As a result, the ANSA news agency reported that the number of parties in the lower house of Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, would drop to just 6 from 26. For the first time since World War II, there will be no one in Parliament representing the Communist Party, which has long played an important part in leftist politics here. Mr. Veltroni, in fact, started his political career as a Communist.Experts on the left and the right said and in some cases lamented that the election had shown a shift toward a more American- or British-style system of two dominant middle-ground parties.Its a Waterloo, said Tuesdays headline in the moderate left daily Il Riformista.Its editor, Antonio Polito, a departing senator from the now-defunct Margherita Party, said, The left is disappearing for the first time in history. Referring to Mr. Veltronis party, he added, The only party that managed to save itself after two disastrous Prodi years is a party that is modeling itself after the Democratic or Labor Parties, in the United States and Britain, respectively.Mr. Berlusconis spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, echoed the analysis. Italy has rewarded a simplification of the political panorama, he said.