UPDATE - Hung parliament on cards in Italy elections

UPDATES WITH EARLY RESULTS RELEASED BY INTERIOR MINISTRY, EDITS THROUGHOUT, HEADLINE CHANGED

By Ecenur Colak

ROME (AA) - Populist and anti-EU parties have taken a lead in Sunday's parliamentary elections in Italy as the country appears set to head towards a hung parliament, according to preliminary results released Monday.

The first results show that no party or coalition got enough votes to form a government on its own.

The Interior Ministry’s early results on Monday showed the coalition of former President Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party along with the far-right Lega Nord (Northern League), Brothers of Italy and Us with Italy parties bagged the most seats (over 37 percent) in the parliament.

The anti-establishment Five-Star Movement is set to be the biggest individual party, receiving around 32 percent votes; Matte Salvini's anti-immigrant party Lega Nord came ahead (17.7 percent votes) of its center-right ally, Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party (13.9 percent).

Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party got 4.3 percent and Raffaele Fitto's Us with Italy party received 1.3 percent of the total votes.

The center-left coalition headed by former Premier Matteo Renzi fell short of expectations, winning about 19 percent of the vote, according to the early results.

The voting ended at 11 p.m. local time (GMT2200) on Sunday, with nearly 46.5 million citizens casting their votes.

The turnout for the voting was about 75 percent, which was approximately the same turnout as the previous elections that were held in 2013.