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Italy - Political Parties

The parliament constitutes the legislative branch of the central government. It consists of a chamber of deputies and a senate with 630 and 315 elected members, respectively. Between 1945 and 1993 when the proportional representation [PR] system prevailed, Italy saw a total of 52 governments come and go, with each cabinet lasting less than one year on average into their five-year term. Except for brief periods, no single party has been able to command an overall majority in parliament, and Italy had a long history of weak coalition governments.

In 1993, the parliament enacted electoral reforms. From the adoption of the Italian Constitution in 1948 until 1993, both chambers of parliament (the chamber of deputies and the senate) were elected by a system of proportional representation with a nominal lower limit on the percentage of votes needed to achieve representation. The electoral reform legislation adopted by parliament in August 1993 provided that 75% of the members of both houses of parliament be elected through a "First past the post" system, or single-member districts in which the candidate receiving the largest number of votes wins. The remaining 25% are elected through a proportional representation system. In the chamber of deputies, only parties that receive at least 4% of the total vote on a nationwide basis are eligible for the seats elected by proportional representation. These modifications of the voting system significantly reduced the number of parliamentary seats held by parties that receive a relatively small share of the popular vote.

The political scene is even more fractured now than in the days when coalitions dominated by the Christian Democrats rose and fell every few months. Then there were only eight parties that mattered. By 2010, at least 16 political groups were active on the national stage. The conditions for party government have been undermined in such a way that it is now almost impossible to imagine party government in contemporary Europe either functioning effectively or sustaining legitimacy.

Italy's dramatic self-renewal transformed the political landscape between 1992 and 1997. Scandal investigations touched thousands of politicians, administrators, and businessmen; the shift from a proportional to majoritarian voting system also altered the political landscape. Since the electoral reforms, Italy held four general elections. Party changes were sweeping. The Christian Democratic Party dissolved; the Italian People's Party and the Christian Democratic Center emerged. Other major parties, such as the Socialists, saw support plummet. A new populist and free-market oriented movement, Forza Italia, gained wide support among moderate voters. The National Alliance broke from the neofascist Italian Social Movement.

A trend toward two large coalitions -- one on the center-left and the other on the center-right -- emerged from the April 1995 regional elections. For the 1996 national elections, the center-left parties created the Olive Tree coalition while the center right united again under the Freedom Pole. The May 2001 elections ushered into power a refashioned center-right coalition dominated by Berlusconi's party, Forza Italia.

In December 2005, a new law was enacted modifying the voting system for the Chamber of Deputies. This modified voting system was utilized for the first time in the general elections in April 2006. In the Chamber of Deputies, the electorate votes for lists of candidates presented by the multiparty coalitions and individual parties. Seats in the Chamber of Deputies are awarded based on the number of votes obtained by each list, provided that multiparty coalitions and individual parties are not eligible for any seat unless they attain at least 10 per cent and 4 per cent of the total votes, respectively. The threshold is reduced to two percent if the party is formally part of a coalition that receives at least 10 percent of total votes. In addition, a "first past the post" mechanism applies if the winning coalition does not obtain at least 340 seats (out of 630 seats) in the Chamber of Deputies.

In order to ensure government stability, if the winning coalition does not obtain at least 340 seats, it is automatically awarded as many seats as it needs to reach 340 seats. The remaining seats will be divided among opposition parties on a proportional basis. In the Senate, the governing coalition will be given at least 170 seats out of a total of 315. As before, there are 12 seats in the Chamber and 6 in the Senate elected directly by Italians living abroad. The leader of the largest party in the winning coalition will be the presumptive prime ministerial candidate. However, this cannot be stated explicitly in the law since the selection of prime minister is constitutionally the prerogative of the President of the Republic.

In the parliamentary elections held on April 9-10, 2006, a full-blown proportional representation [PR] electoral system replaced the mixed one. Each elector cast one vote for a closed party list, from which electors cannot choose individual candidates. The PR system used in 2006 also brought with it a "majority prize". It awarded "bonus" seats to winners on a national basis in the lower house and regionally in the Senate. Take the lower house for example, the bonus meant that a party or a coalition, obtaining the most votes but still short of 55 percent of parliament seats, will be given extra seats till its number of seats increases to 340, or 55 percent, out of a total of 618 seats.

In national elections held April 9-10, 2006, Romano Prodi's center-left Union coalition, a successor to the Olive Tree, won a narrow victory over Berlusconi's Freedom House coalition. The Union coalition included the Democratic Party (born of the November 2007 fusion of the Democrats of the Left and the Daisy Party), UDEUR (Union of Democrats for Europe), Rose in the Fist (made up by Italian Social Democrats and Italian Radical Party), Communist Renewal, the Italian Communist Party, Italy of Values, and the Greens. In January 2008, the Prodi government fell when small coalition partner UDEUR withdrew support. Italy witnessed the collapse of its 61st government in 63 years since the end of World War II. Italian Premier Romano Prodi won a confidence vote in the Lower House, in a vote that saw 326 MPs voting in favor and 275 against the confidence motion. But the center-left cabinet led by Prime Minister Romano Prodi was brought down after the ex-European Commission president lost a confidence vote in the Senate. Italy's Senate Speaker Franco Marini began talks aimed at seeking support for overhauling the country's election system, saying the current one failed again to deliver the country from its chronic woes of short-lived governments.

In October 2007, the Democrats of the Left and the Daisy parties officially merged to form the Democratic Party. Veltroni was chosen as party leader and was the center-left's candidate in the April 2008 elections. Silvio Berlusconi launched an alliance between his Forza Italia party and Gianfranco Fini's National Alliance. The parties ran together under the People of Liberty symbol in April 2008. The National Alliance did not want to be on the same ticket as tiny parties like The Right of Francesco Storace, or the centrist UDEUR (Union of Democrats for Europe) of ex-justice minister Clemente Mastella, whose defection from the center left in January 2008 brought down brought down Prodi's government. Similar views were expressed by UDC leader Pier Ferdinando Casini and the Northern League.

The election greatly simplified parliament, dramatically reducing the numbers of parties, and for the first time since World War II, leaving communist parties out of parliament. People of Liberty (37.4%) won the largest share of the vote and took power in coalition with a strengthened Northern League (8.3%) and the tiny Movement for Autonomy (1.1%). The Democratic Party scored 33.2% and ran in alliance with Italy of Values (4.4%), while the Union of the Center (5.6%) ran alone.

The Communist Refoundation Party, the Party of Italian Communists, the Federation of Greens, and the Democratic Left merged to form "la Sinistra - l'Arcobaleno" (The Left - The Rainbow). The Rainbow Left did so poorly in the election as to not win any seats at all. The absence of the Rainbow Left from parliament may shift support to the Democratic Party, the only leftist party in parliament apart from the single-issue anti-corruption Italia dei Valori.

In March 2009, Forza Italia and National Alliance changed the People of Liberty identification from an alliance to a party. The new mass center-right party is Italy's largest party and one of the largest in Europe. Party leaders define the party as post-ideological, charismatic, and pragmatic. It is led by Berlusconi.