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All 81 Italian seats to the European Parliament | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 82.47% ( 2.9 pp) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1984 European Parliament election in Italy was held on 17 June 1984. The election took place just a week after the death of Italian Communist Party (PCI) leader Enrico Berlinguer; this fact greatly influenced the vote, producing a historical result. [1]
The pure party-list proportional representation was the traditional electoral system of the Italian Republic since its foundation in 1946, so it had been adopted to elect the Italian representatives to the European Parliament too. Two levels were used: a national level to divide seats between parties, and a constituency level to distribute them between candidates. Italian regions were united in 5 constituencies, each electing a group of deputies. At national level, seats were divided between party lists using the largest remainder method with Hare quota. All seats gained by each party were automatically distributed to their local open lists and their most voted candidates.
The public emotion caused by Berlinguer's tragic death resulted in an extraordinary strength for the PCI; [1] for the first time in Western Europe since the 1956 French legislative election and the first time ever in Italian history, a Communist party received a plurality by a democratic vote.
In opposition, this result reinforced the moderate government ruling the country. The Italian Socialist Party of Prime Minister Bettino Craxi had maintained its vote, and its major ally, the defeated Christian Democracy, did not want to take any chances of a political crisis that could lead to dangerous general election.
| National party | EP group | Main candidate | Votes | % | +/– | Seats | +/– | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Italian Communist Party (PCI) | COM | Enrico Berlinguer | 11,714,428 | 33.33 | 3.76  | 27 | 3 | ||
| Christian Democracy (DC) | EPP | Ciriaco De Mita | 11,583,767 | 32.96 | 3.49 | 26 | 3 | ||
| Italian Socialist Party (PSI) | SOC | Carlo Tognoli | 3,940,445 | 11.21 | 0.18 | 9 | 0  | ||
| Italian Social Movement (MSI) | ER | Giorgio Almirante | 2,274,556 | 6.47 | 1.02 | 5 | 1 | ||
| Italian Liberal Party – Italian Republican Party (PLI–PRI) | LD | Sergio Pininfarina | 2,140,501 | 6.09 | 2.46 | 5 | 2 | ||
| Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) | SOC | Giovanni Moroni | 1,225,462 | 3.49 | 0.83 | 3 | 1 | ||
| Radical Party (PR) | NI | Enzo Tortora | 1,199,876 | 3.67 | 0.26 | 3 | 0 | ||
| Proletarian Democracy (DP) | RBW | Emilio Molinari | 506,753 | 1.44 | 0.72 | 1 | 0 | ||
| South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP) | EPP | Joachim Dalsass | 198,220 | 0.56 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Federalism (UV–PSd'Az–Others) | RBW | Michele Columbu | 193,430 | 0.55 | 0.08 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Venetian League (ŁV) | None | 164,115 | 0.47 | — | 0 | 0 | |||
| Valid votes | 35,141,553 | 94.80 | |||||||
| Blank and invalid votes | 1,928,073 | 5.20 | |||||||
| Totals | 37,069,626 | 100.00 | — | 81 | — | ||||
| Electorate (eligible voters) and voter turnout | 44,948,253 | 82.47 | 2.91 | ||||||
| Source: Italian Ministry of the Interior | |||||||||
Enrico Berlinguer was an Italian politician. Considered the most popular leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), he led the PCI as the national secretary from 1972 until his death during a tense period in Italy's history, which was marked by the Years of Lead and social conflicts, such as the Hot Autumn of 1969–1970. Berlinguer was born into a middle-class family; his father was a socialist who became a deputy and later senator. After leading the party's youth wing in his hometown, he led the PCI's youth wing, the Italian Communist Youth Federation (FGCI), at the national level from 1949 to 1956. In 1968, he was elected to the country's Chamber of Deputies, and he became the leader of the PCI in 1972; he remained a deputy until his death in 1984. Under his leadership, the number of votes for the PCI peaked. The PCI's results in 1976 remain the highest for any Italian left-wing or centre-left party both in terms of votes and vote share, and the party's results in 1984, just after his death, remain the best result for an Italian left-wing party in European elections, and were toppled, in terms of vote share in a lower-turnout election, in the 2014 European Parliament election in Italy.
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