The head of Italy’s Democratic Party, Pier Luigi Bersani, has won the first round of a primary to lead the centre-left into a general election early next year, an organiser of the vote said yesterday.

Bersani garnered 44.9 per cent of the vote compared with 35.5 per cent for his main rival, Florence mayor Matteo Renzi, said Nico Stumpo, national coordinator of Sunday’s election in which more than three million centre-left voters took part.

Stumpo said that the results were based on nearly all the ballots counted.

Since no one candidate has won a majority, there will now have to be a run-off on Sunday between the 61-year-old former communist Bersani and the 37-year old Renzi, who looks to US President Barack Obama as an inspiration.

While Bersani has served in government where he spearheaded a major liberalisation drive, Renzi’s experience has been in local government but he is seen as a rising star who will play a major role whatever the outcome.

The Democratic Party is widely tipped by the polls to win elections expected in April 2013, although it will need a coalition to form a ruling majority. Renzi is seen as a “transversal” figure who can appeal to parts of the centre-right electorate, while Bersani is a more traditional leftist leader.

With more than three million Italians turning out Sunday to vote in a primary, the recession-hit country’s centre-left electorate showed its vitality ahead of a general election next year that may put their Democratic Party back in the driver’s seat, analysts said.

“At a time of crisis in politics and rising abstentionism, we witnessed an example of democracy in a rather hostile climate,” Mario Centorrino, a professor of political science at Messina University in Sicily, said.

The turnout to select the centre-left’s candidate for elections that pollsters say it is expected to win was all the more impressive amid a wave of fraud scandals that have weakened many Italians’ faith in their politicians.

Analysts said that with Renzi as runner-up, he could come out a “winner” since his result means his message of renewal in Italy’s leftist leadership is being heard and his role in attracting centrist voters will prove crucial.

“Even if Bersani wins the second round, we cannot erase the Renzi experience. A part of the left has renewed itself,” said Centorrino, adding that many people had appreciated “this offer of a political renewal”.

There is a stark contrast between the 61-year-old Bersani, a former communist with a liberal economic streak, and the 37-year-old Renzi, a fan of US President Barack Obama who wants to “scrap” the Democratic Party elite. “Renzi scored a major success,” said Giacomo Marramao, a professor of political philosophy at the University of Rome.

“I don’t think there would have been so many people taking part without Renzi, who gave life to these primaries,” he said.

Stefano Folli, a political columnist for business daily Il Sole 24 Ore, said Renzi was now “leader of the modernising wing” of the Democratic Party.

Folli said “Renzism” represented the idea of “a modern,liberal left”. A total of five candidates were bidding for the nomination. Third in the results was Nichi Vendola, the 54-year-old governor of the Apulia region, a gay Catholic who was considered the most left-wing of the five and a fierce opponent of Prime Minister Mario Monti’s Government.