Italian centre-left primary election, 2005

Last updated April 10, 2019

The 2005 Italian centre-left primary election determined the leader of the coalition The Union, who will stand as common candidate for the office of Prime Minister in the subsequent general election, which will take place on 9–10 April 2006. It was won with 74% of the votes by Romano Prodi.^[1]

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km² (116,350 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe.

The Union was an heterogenous centre-left political and electoral alliance of political parties in Italy. The Union was the direct heir of The Olive Tree coalition which represented the centre-left in the 1996 and 2001 general elections. However, The Union also included parties of the radical left, which were not affiliated with The Olive Tree. The Union was led by Romano Prodi, Prime Minister of Italy from April 2006 to April 2008, and former President of the European Commission. Collapsing in the wake of the 2008 Italian political crisis, the alliance was succeeded by the current-day centre-left coalition.

The President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic, commonly referred to in Italy as Presidente del Consiglio, or informally as Premier and known in English as the Prime Minister of Italy, is the head of government of the Italian Republic. The office of Prime Minister is established by Articles 92 through to 96 of the Constitution of Italy. The Prime Minister is appointed by the President of the Republic after each general election and must have the confidence of the Italian Parliament to stay in office.

Historical background

As of 2005, the coalition was assumed to be led by Romano Prodi, however he called for a primary election in order to gain an official leadership. Primary elections were a novelty in Italian politics, as the proportional system in place until the early 1990s was supposed to present sufficient variety to electors. With the new majoritarian electoral system, two clear blocks emerged since 1996.

Romano Prodi is an Italian politician who served as the 10th President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Prime Minister of Italy, first from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and then from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008. He is considered the founder of the Italian centre-left and one of the most prominent and iconic figures of the so-called Second Republic. Prodi is often nicknamed Il Professore due to his academic career.

A primary election is the process by which voters, either the general public or members of a political party, can indicate their preference for a candidate in an upcoming general election or by-election, thus narrowing the field of candidates.

Proportional representation (PR) characterizes electoral systems in which divisions in an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. If n% of the electorate support a particular political party, then roughly n% of seats will be won by that party. The essence of such systems is that all votes contribute to the result - not just a plurality, or a bare majority. The most prevalent forms of proportional representation all require the use of multiple-member voting districts, as it is not possible to fill a single seat in a proportional manner. In fact, the implementations of PR that achieve the highest levels of proportionality tend to include districts with large numbers of seats.

Primary elections had never been held on a national level before in Italy, and only once at a regional level, in Apulia: in that occasion, Nichi Vendola, a communist and gay Catholic, became the candidate for the centre-left coalition in a region reputed to be conservative and with deep religious roots. The institute of primary election came under criticism from some centre-left moderates, as in their opinion it had produced a useless candidate doomed to failure. However, Vendola's victory against the incumbent governor and centre-right candidate Raffaele Fitto, a much more conventional and moderate young man, vindicated the primary elections in the internal argumentations of The Union.

Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea to the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Otranto and Gulf of Taranto to the south. The region comprises 19,345 square kilometers (7,469 sq mi), and its population is about four million.

Nichi Vendola Italian writer and politician

Nicola "Nichi" Vendola is an Italian left-wing politician and LGBT activist who was a Member of the Chamber of Deputies from Apulia from 1992 to 2005 and President of Apulia from 2005 to 2015. He is one of the first openly LGBT Italian politicians and the first openly LGBT heads of a regional government in Italy.

In political and social sciences, communism is the philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and the state.

Candidates

When the primary elections were first proposed, they were mostly meant as a plebiscite for Romano Prodi, since there were no other candidates to the leadership of the coalition. The secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party, Fausto Bertinotti, then announced he would run for the leadership, even if only to act as a symbolic candidate, to avoid a one-candidate election. After some time, more candidates were presented.

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is invited to vote on a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new law. In some countries, it is synonymous with a plebiscite or a vote on a ballot question.

Fausto Bertinotti is an Italian politician who led the Communist Refoundation Party from 1994 to 2006 and served as President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 2006 to 2008. On 29 April 2006, after the centre-left coalition's victory in the Italian general election, he was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower House of Parliament.

In a representative democracy, the term paper candidate is often given to a candidate who stands for a political party in an electoral division where the party in question enjoys only low levels of support. Although the candidate has little chance of winning, a major party will normally make an effort to ensure it has its name on the ballot paper in every constituency. In two-party systems, a paper candidate may also be known as token opposition.

The primary election may have been foreseen an easy win for Prodi, with the other candidates running mostly to "measure their strengths" in the coalition, and they often talked about reaching a certain percentage rather than winning. However, there were rumours of supporters of the House of Freedoms trying to participate in the elections, and vote in favour of Clemente Mastella, reputed to be the least competent of the candidates and the least likely to win against Berlusconi, other than the most centrist; other rumours indicated such "fake" left-wing voters would vote for Bertinotti, because his leadership would likely lose any grip on the political centre.

The House of Freedoms, was a major centre-right political and electoral alliance in Italy, led by Silvio Berlusconi.

Mario Clemente Mastella is an Italian politician. He is the leader of Union of Democrats for Europe, a minor centrist Italian party. He was Minister of Labour in the Berlusconi government from 10 May 1994 to 17 January 1995, and Minister of Justice in the Prodi government from 17 May 2006 to 17 January 2008. In addition Mastella is also mayor of his native town, Ceppaloni. He was elected to the European Parliament in June 2009 on the list of The People of Freedom of Berlusconi.

In politics, centrism—the centre or the center —is a political outlook or specific position that involves acceptance or support of a balance of a degree of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy, while opposing political changes which would result in a significant shift of society strongly to either the left or the right.

Portrait	Name		Details and notes
		Romano Prodi	Leader of The Olive Tree Former Prime Minister of Italy Former President of the European Commission Former minister in Giulio Andreotti IV Cabinet
		Fausto Bertinotti	Secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party Member of the Chamber of Deputies
		Clemente Mastella	Leader of UDEUR Member of the Chamber of Deputies Former minister in Silvio Berlusconi I Cabinet
		Antonio Di Pietro	Leader of Italy of Values Member of the Chamber of Deputies Former minister in Romano Prodi I Cabinet
		Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio	Leader of Federation of the Greens Member of the Chamber of Deputies Former minister in Giuliano Amato I Cabinet
		Ivan Scalfarotto	LGBT activist
		Simona Panzino	Anti-globalization activist

Results

The primary election had been held nationwide on 16 October 2005, from 8am to 10pm. The primary election was open to all Italian citizens who were at least 18 during the following general election, plus regular immigrants who have lived in Italy for three years (immigrants still do not have the opportunity to vote for any other election in Italy), against a payment of (at least) 1 euro, charged to cover organisational expenses. Poll stations were mainly managed on a voluntary basis; they were hosted mainly in squares, local party quarters, schools, and even restaurants, bars, campers and a hairdresser; some polling stations were also provided outside the country for Italians abroad. Most of the party leaders claimed a result of 1 million voters would be a good success for the election. The total count was in excess of 4,300,000.

A restaurant, or an eatery, is a business which prepares and serves food and drinks to customers in exchange for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services, and some offer only take-out and delivery. Restaurants vary greatly in appearance and offerings, including a wide variety of cuisines and service models ranging from inexpensive fast food restaurants and cafeterias to mid-priced family restaurants, to high-priced luxury establishments.

A recreational vehicle, often abbreviated as RV, is a motor vehicle or trailer which includes living quarters designed for accommodation. Types of RVs include motorhomes, campervans, caravans, fifth-wheel trailers, popup campers and truck campers.

A hairdresser is a person whose occupation is to cut or style hair in order to change or maintain a person's image. This is achieved using a combination of hair coloring, haircutting, and hair texturing techniques. Most hairdressers are professionally licensed as either a hairdresser, a barber or a cosmetologist.

Candidates		Parties
Candidates		Parties	Votes	%
	Romano Prodi	The Olive Tree (L'Ulivo)	3,182,686	74.17
	Fausto Bertinotti	Communist Refoundation Party (PRC)	631,592	14.69
	Clemente Mastella	Union of Democrats for Europe (UDEUR)	196,014	4.56
	Antonio Di Pietro	Italy of Values (IdV)	142,143	3.28
	Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio	Federation of the Greens (FdV)	95,388	2.22
	Ivan Scalfarotto	Independent	26,912	0.62
	Simona Panzino	Independent	19,752	0.46
Total			4,294,487	100

Popular vote

Prodi			74.17%
Bertinotti			14.69%
Mastella			4.46%
Di Pietro			3.28%
Pecoraro Scanio			2.22%
Scalfarotto			0.62%
Panzino			0.46%

Political reactions

Most reactions on the centre-left were comprehensibly enthusiastic, especially because of the high number of participants. Clemente Mastella, however, accused the organization of rigging the election and having pre-printed ballots in favour of Prodi.

On the centre-right, two main attitudes were held: some respected or even hailed the election, others contested its validity and characterised them as propaganda.^[2]

Silvio Berlusconi said the primary elections "are the only way they can win";
Gianfranco Fini expressed respect for voters, but suggested, on the basis of Mastella's claims, that the results may have been rigged;
Roberto Maroni from the Lega Nord said that the elections "deserve respect in any case, but will not solve the centre-left's internal contradictions";
Roberto Castelli, minister of justice, stygmatised the elections as a "perfect example of Soviet-style political campaign: there is no certification of the data purported by the centre-left, and knowing their methods they are certainly inflated".
The Union of Christian and Centre Democrats expressed the most positive judgements from the centre-right, and Bruno Tabacci called for primary elections in the centre-right too, following tensions between his party and Berlusconi, no longer felt to be a strong candidate.

Controversies

Allegations of fraud by Mastella

Clemente Mastella claimed, already on the election day, that too few ballots had been provided in areas where his party is stronger, and that several pre-marked voting papers, pre-marked with votes for Prodi, have been prepared in order to let him lose. No one other than Mastella backed up these claims inside the coalition, and material evidence was not presented.

Murder of Francesco Fortugno

Francesco Fortugno, vice-president of the Council of Calabria and member of The Daisy (DL), was murdered on 16 October 2005 by two killers when he was waiting in line to vote in a polling station in Locri. The act was assumed to have political significance since the murderers killed him on a political occasion and with dozens of witnesses. The administration Fortugno was a part of had previously removed many administrators, and some saw this murder as an act of retribution from the 'Ndrangheta against Agazio Loiero's administration.

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References

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[1] Breve storia delle primarie in Italia

[2] "Meritano rispetto", "No, è una farsa". La Cdl tra ironia e preoccupazione