One of the movement’s candidates advanced to the run-off for mayor of Parma, one of Italy’s most industrious cities whose previous government was swept away by a scandal over kickbacks. Others more than held their own in many symbolic cities, winning, for instance, on the first ballot in Sarego, a town of 6,000 near Vicenza. The town is home to the self-proclaimed autonomous parliament of the Northern League, the federalist party whose leader, Umberto Bossi, resigned last month after scandals involving the misuse of party funds. The Northern League managed to retain power in Verona but lost votes in many other cities where it had been the dominant force for years.

Lower voter turnout — 66.88 percent, compared with 73.74 five years ago — was also seen as a sign of growing disaffection among the electorate.

“The vote gives reasons for reflection to political forces and citizens,” President Giorgio Napolitano said Tuesday.

Some analysts also saw the returns as a reaction to the austerity measures put in place by Prime Minister Mario Monti’s government, which replaced Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition last November. In trying to lower Italy’s huge public debt, the government has pushed through a series of pension changes and tax increases, and it is working to pass other equally unpopular measures, including a highly contested labor overhaul as well as a new property tax.

But even as the austerity measures have begun to sting citizens, political leaders have been reluctant to trim their own spending. This hesitancy has darkened the public mood toward Italy’s traditional political parties, which have been criticized as out of touch with the daily needs of citizens and outmatched by the challenge of fixing Europe’s economic crisis. A number of party scandals have also worn away voter confidence in the mainstream parties, which has polled as low as 4 percent.

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Tellingly, in referendums in Sardinia held with the elections, voters overwhelmingly abolished four provincial administrative structures, and their lawmakers with them. They voted to reduce their regional representatives to 50 from 80 and to cut lawmakers’ wages.

Some members of Mr. Berlusconi’s party believed that they had lost popularity because the former prime minister, who has kept a low profile since leaving office, had not campaigned alongside the candidates.

“The less Berlusconi is involved, the more the party loses,” said Altero Matteoli, a lawmaker with the party.

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The former prime minister, who was in Russia for the swearing-in ceremony of Vladimir V. Putin as president, said he had “expected worse,” according to Il Giornale, Mr. Berlusconi’s family’s newspaper.

Others said the party had lost its way.

“We were the party that wanted to change everything — now we are the party that should be changed,” said Giancarlo Galan, who was culture minister in Mr. Berlusconi’s last government.

The strong voter disenchantment suggested that the major parties would be unlikely to risk early general elections before Mr. Monti’s term ends in May 2013.

For the center-right, early elections “mean certain defeat,” and the center-left, which might be tempted by the polls, “wants to make changes to the electoral law,” before going to a vote, said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political science professor at Luiss Guido Carli University, Rome.

In the meantime, Mr. Monti has bigger issues to contend with, from battling unemployment to paying off public debts owed to private entrepreneurs.

“And then,” Mr. D’Alimonte said, “his ability to rule depends more on what will happen in Europe than on the local elections. International variables are more important than domestic ones.”