Italy's centre-left was headed for victory in local elections on Monday, reflecting widespread anger over austerity driving Italians to join other crisis-hit eurozone countries to reject the status quo.

With just one-third of ballots left to count, the centre-right was left scrambling, many blaming the "anti-politics" sentiment sweeping the nation in the wake of the crisis and a slew of corruption scandals involving politicians.

In Palermo, the biggest city going to the ballots, two centre-left candidates were ahead and will face off in a second round on May 20 and 21.

The Italy of Values candidate Leoluca Orlando -- a former mayor with a reputation for tackling mafia in the crime-dogged city -- was set to win 46.6 percent, while the Democratic Party (PD) candidate was at 20.71 percent.

"Palermo is finally free!" Orlando said as results began filtering through.

The centre-right People of Freedom (PDL), founded by ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, was winning 11.33 percent -- a poor performance echoed across Italy in what had been seen as a test for the party, now headed by a Berlusconi ally.

The populist "Five Star Movement", founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, celebrated its first victory with the election of its candidate as mayor in the town of Sarego in the Veneto region, traditionally a right-wing stronghold.

Boosted by anger gaining ground in Italy, the movement has relied on a social networks to give both the centre-left and right a run for their money.

In Parma, the PD was set to win 39.3 percent against the Five Star Movement's 19.4 percent, which would see them face off in the second round.

"We are an epic change. And this is just the beginning. The parties are melting into a political diarrhoea. The citizens are taking back their institutions," Grillo said in a YouTube message as the votes flooded in.

In the port city of Genoa the centre-left was taking 48.7 percent.

"The novelty in these elections has been the return in many cities of a wide coalition of the centre-left," Milan mayor Giuliano Pisapia told reporters.

The vote came after game-changer elections in France and Greece which reflected a desire to change the status quo and a rejection of austerity.

Ignazio La Russa, a lawmaker from the PDL and former defence minister, told reporters: "We made mistakes with the candidates we put forward.

"We're obsessed with finding people who look good without knowing whether they have any experience while people want reliable candidates," he said.

Some 9.5 million Italians were eligible to vote in 941 municipalities out of a total of around 8,000 including cities, but turnover figures in the two-day elections were down, at 66.88 percent compared to 73.74 at the previous vote.

PD official Davide Zoggia said: "From the results at our disposal, we see a major crisis in the centre-right of the PDL, and of the Northern League" -- the two parties that formed a coalition government under Berlusconi.

Berlusconi was ousted amid a flurry of sex and corruption scandals, while the League suffered a heavy blow in April when its historic leader Umberto Bossi was forced to quit amid allegations of misuse of party funds.

In the northern city of Verona the right fought back, with the candidate for the anti-immigrant Northern League snagging 57.4 percent of the vote.

The vote is the first since the fall of Berlusconi in November 2011 and his replacement by Mario Monti at the head of an unelected, technocratic government charged with saving Italy from bankruptcy.

"The picture that emerges is of a very clear strengthening of the PD and the centre-left, a tsunami of the centre-right and a step forward for Grillo," PD head Pier Luigi Bersani told reporters as the vote counting wound up.

He added that it was clear that those Italians who had chosen to vote for the PD were in favour of the party's support for Monti's technical government.

While the PDL head Alfano accepted the party had "suffered a defeat", Berlusconi said "the results were better than I expected" considering the country's current "festival of anti-politics."

The run-up to the polls has been marked by rising discontent with the budget cuts, pension reforms and tax increases implemented by Monti and Italian media have drawn attention to a spate of suicides by businessmen driven to despair.

The focus on the suicide crisis began on March 28 when Giuseppe Campaniello set himself on fire in front of a tax office -- a gesture reminiscent of the Arab Spring revolts -- and died in agony in hospital a few days later.

Lavish benefits for politicians and a far-reaching scandal into public subsidies for political parties in recent weeks at a time when austerity cuts are beginning to hit ordinary Italians have fanned disillusionment.

Italy is scheduled to hold a general election in spring 2013.