Italian general election, 1996

Italian general election, 1996

21 April 1996

All 630 seats in the Italian Chamber of Deputies 315 seats in the Italian Senate Turnout 82.88%   First party Second party Third party   Leader Romano Prodi Silvio Berlusconi Umberto Bossi Party Independent Forza Italia Lega Nord Alliance The Olive Tree Pole for Freedoms Leader's seat Bologna East Milan Centre Milan Centre (lost) Last election 259 & 153 seats, 34.4% 273 & 114 seats, 42.8% 11 & 8 seats, 8.4% Seats won 322 (C) 169 (S) 246 (C) 116 (S) 59 (C) 27 (S) Seat change 63 26 67 Popular vote 16,924,099 15,095,436 3,776,354 Percentage 45.4% 43.2% 10.1% Swing 11.0% 0.4% 1.3%

Legislative election results map. Red denotes provinces with a Democratic Socialist plurality, Azure denotes those with a Forza Italia plurality, Blue denotes those with a National Alliance plurality, Green denotes those with a Lega Nord plurality, Yellow denotes those with a Populars plurality, Cyan denotes those with a Christian Democratic plurality.

Prime Minister before election Lamberto Dini Independent Elected Prime Minister Romano Prodi The Olive Tree

A snap national general election was held in Italy on 21 April 1996 to elect members of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic. Romano Prodi, leader of the centre-left coalition The Olive Tree, won the election, narrowly defeating Silvio Berlusconi, who led the Pole for Freedoms centre-right coalition.

For the election, the Lega Nord of Umberto Bossi ran alone, after having left the Berlusconi I Cabinet in 1994, causing a crisis which drove President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro to appoint a technocratic cabinet led by Lamberto Dini, which in turn lost its Parliamentary support in 1995, forcing Scalfaro to dissolve the Italian Parliament. The Communist Refoundation Party, led by Fausto Bertinotti, instead made a pre-electoral alliance with The Olive Tree, presenting its own candidates, supported by Prodi's coalition, mainly in some safe leftist constituencies, in exchange for supporting Olive Tree candidates on the other ones, and ensuring external support for a Prodi government.

Electoral system

The intricate electoral system of Italy, nicknamed as Mattarellum (after Sergio Mattarella, who was the official proponent), provided a 75% of the seats on the Chamber of Deputies (the Lower House) as elected by a plurality voting system, whereas the remaining 25% was assigned by proportional representation with a minimum threshold of 4%. If possible, the method associate on the Senate was even more complicated: 75% of seats by uninominal method, and 25% by a special proportional method that actually assigned the remaining seats to minority parties.

General election

Background

In December 1994, following the communication of a new investigation from Milan magistrates that was leaked to the press, Umberto Bossi, leader of the Lega Nord, left the coalition claiming that the electoral pact had not been respected, forcing Berlusconi to resign from office and shifting the majority's weight to the centre-left side. Lega Nord also resented the fact that many of its MPs had switched to Forza Italia, allegedly lured by promises of more prestigious portfolios.

Berlusconi remained as caretaker prime minister for a little over a month until his replacement by a technocratic government headed by Lamberto Dini. Dini had been a key minister in the Berlusconi cabinet, and Berlusconi said the only way he would support a technocratic government would be if Dini headed it. In the end, however, Dini was only supported by most opposition parties but not by Forza Italia and Lega Nord.

In December 1995 Dini resigned as Prime Minister and the President of the Republic, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, decided to begin consultations to form a government, substained by all the parties in the Parliament to make constitutional reforms. Favourably to this proposal sided both, in a TV debate on 19 January 1996, Silvio Berlusconi and Democratic Party of the Left leader Massimo D'Alema. Although there were many problems on this theme in both coalition: in fact Gianfranco Fini and Romano Prodi wanted a snap election, not sure that the reforms would be helpful for the country. On 16 February 1996, a snap election was called.

Campaign

On 19 February 1996, the outgoing Prime Minister Lamberto Dini announced that he would run in the election with a new party allied with The Olive Tree rather than Berlusconi's Pole of Freedoms. Shortly after Berlusconi claimed that Dini "copied our electoral programme".^[1]

Another important declaration was Umberto Bossi's one: the leader of the regionalist Lega Nord, which was very important in 1994 to help Berlusconi winning the election, said that his party would not support Berlusconi anymore and run alone in the election. At the same time, Prodi's coalition made an important pre-electoral agreement with Communist Refoundation Party in which Fausto Bertinotti's party undertook to support Prodi's government after the election in the case of a no-majority Parliament.

On 25 March 1996, Berlusconi organised a great manifestation in Milan against taxes (The Tax Day) attended by lot of Milanese artisans; on the same day, in Turin, Prodi was heavily contested during his electoral speech and accused of not wanting to lower taxes.^[2]

Parties and leaders

Coalitions and electoral lists

Main leaders

Coalition		Portrait	Name	Most recent position
	The Olive Tree		Romano Prodi	Minister of Industry, Commerce and Manufacturing (1978–1979) Leader of the Olive Tree (1995–incumbent)
	Pole for Freedoms		Silvio Berlusconi	Prime Minister of Italy (1994–1995) President of Forza Italia (1994–incumbent)
	Lega Nord		Umberto Bossi	Federal Secretary of Lega Nord (1989–incumbent)
	Communist Refoundation Party		Fausto Bertinotti	Secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party (1993–incumbent)
	Pannella-Sgarbi List		Marco Pannella	Leader of Pannella List (1992–incumbent)

Results

On election day, Prodi's Olive Tree coalition won over Berlusconi's Pole for Freedoms, becoming the first coalition composed by a post-communist party to win general election since the Second World War. In the Senate The Olive Tree obtained the majority, but in the Chamber it required the external support of Communist Refoundation Party.

Chamber of Deputies

Proportional

← Summary of the 21 April 1996 Chamber of Deputies election results →

Party		%	Votes	Seats
	Democratic Party of the Left	21.06	7,894,118	26
	Forza Italia	20.57	7,712,149	37
	National Alliance	15.66	5,870,491	28
	Lega Nord	10.07	3,776,354	20
	Communist Refoundation Party	8.57	3,213,748	20
	Populars for Prodi (PPI-UD-PRI-SVP)	6.81	2,554,072	4
	Christian Democratic Centre–United Christian Democrats	5.84	2,189,563	12
	Italian Renewal	4.34	1,627,380	8
	Federation of the Greens	2.50	938,665	0
	Pannella-Sgarbi List	1.88	702,988	0
	Tricolour Flame	0.91	339,351	0
	Socialist Party	0.40	149,441	0
	Southern Action League	0.19	72,062	0
	North-East Union	0.17	63,934	0
	Union for South Tyrol	0.15	55,548	0
	Clean Hands	0.12	44,935	0
	We Sicilians - National Sicilian Front	0.11	41,001	0
	Sardinian Action Party	0.10	38,002	0
	Greens Greens	0.07	25,788	0
	Sardinia Nation	0.06	23,355	0
	Freedom Independence Group	0.05	17,451	0
	Environmentalists	0.04	15,560	0
	Humanist Party	0.04	14,601	0
	Renewal	0.04	13,677	0
	Pact for the Sour	0.03	12,297	0
	Social Democracy	0.02	9,319	0
	Italian Rebirth Movement	0.02	8,886	0
	Tuscan Autonomist Movement	0.02	8,627	0
	Natural Law Party	0.02	8,298	0
	New Democracy	0.02	8,185	0
	Liberal Federalists	0.02	6,475	0
	For Marche	0.01	5,545	0
	New Energies	0.01	5,393	0
	Development and Legality	0.01	5,347	0
	Autonomy Free North	0.01	4,965	0
	Federalist Party	0.01	3,743	0
	Risorgimento of the South	0.01	3,084	0
Total		100.00	37,484,398	155

First-past-the-post

Overall result

Senate of the Republic

← Summary of the 21 April 1996 Senate of the Republic election results →

Parties and coalitions		%	Votes	Seats
	The Olive Tree	39.89	13,013,276	152
	Pole for Freedoms	37.35	12,185,020	116
	Lega Nord	10.41	3,394,733	27
	Progressives	2.87	934,974	10
	Tricolour Flame	2.29	747,487	1
	Pannella-Sgarbi List	1.56	509,826	1
	The Olive Tree–Sardinian Action Party	1.29	421,331	5
	Socialist Party	0.88	286,426	0
	The Fir - SVP–PATT	0.55	178,425	2
	Clean Hands	0.33	109,113	0
	League for Autonomy – Lombard Alliance	0.33	106,313	0
	North-East Union	0.22	72,541	0
	We Sicilians – National Sicilian Front	0.22	71,841	0
	Southern Action League	0.20	66,750	0
	Greens Greens	0.19	61,434	0
	Pensioners' Party	0.19	60,640	0
	Social Democracy	0.18	60,016	0
	Sardinia Nation	0.14	44,713	0
	Aosta Valley	0.10	29,538	1
	Others	0.81	270,188	0
Total		100.00	32,624,584	315

Overall result

Leaders' races

References

1. ↑
2. ↑

External links

• (Italian) Minister of Internal Affairs of Italy: 1996 Election Results, Chamber of Deputies (compressed ZIP file)
• (Italian) Minister of Internal Affairs of Italy: 1996 Election Results, Senate of the Republic (compressed ZIP file)

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