1876 Italian general election

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1876 Italian general election
Flag of Italy (1861-1946) crowned.svg
  1874 5 November 1876 (first round)
12 November 1876 (second round)
1880  

All 508 seats in the Chamber of Deputies
255 seats needed for a majority
 Majority partyMinority party
  Agostino Depretis.jpg Marco Minghetti.jpg
Leader Agostino Depretis Marco Minghetti
Party Historical Left Historical Right
Leader's seat Stradella Legnago
Seats won41494
Seat changeIncrease2.svg182Decrease2.svg182
Popular vote243,31997,726
Percentage70.21%28.20%

1876 Italian general election map.svg
Results by electoral college

Prime Minister before election

Agostino Depretis
Historical Left

Elected Prime Minister

Agostino Depretis
Historical Left

General elections were held in Italy on 5 November, with a second round of voting on 12 November. [1]

Contents

Campaign

The Historical Left was led by the current Prime Minister of Italy, Agostino Depretis, who became head of the government and early elections were called.

On the other hand, the bloc of the Historical Right was led by Marco Minghetti, former prime minister from Bologna.

The election on 5 and 12 November was a snap one, and it came after MPs from Tuscany became dissatisfied with the government of Minghetti following its refusal to intervene in the financial problems of Florence. The government was defeated on a vote on nationalising railways on 18 March 1876 and was forced to resign and Depretis was appointed prime minister. [2] For the first time, the left-wing won an election, taking 414 of the 508 seats, of which 12 were extreme left-wingers. [2] As opposed to the previous right-wing governments, whose members were largely aristocrats representing rentiers from the north of the country, and held moderate political views including loyalty to the crown and low government spending, [3] the left-wing government represented the bourgeoisie of the south of the country and supported low taxation, secularism, a strong foreign policy and public jobs. [2]

Only 605,007 men of a total population of around 28 million were entitled to vote. [4]

Parties and leaders

PartyIdeologyLeader
Historical Left Liberalism Agostino Depretis
Historical Right Conservatism Marco Minghetti

Results

Italian Parliament, 1876.svg
PartyVotes%Seats+/–
Historical Left 243,31970.21414+182
Historical Right 97,72628.2094−182
Others5,5301.600
Total346,575100.005080
Valid votes346,57596.74
Invalid/blank votes11,6883.26
Total votes358,263100.00
Registered voters/turnout605,00759.22
Source: National Institute of Statistics [5]

References

  1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1047 ISBN   978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. 1 2 3 Nohlen & Stöver, p1029
  3. Nohlen & Stöver, p1028
  4. Nohlen & Stöver, p1049
  5. National Institute of Statistics