Italian general election, 1876

Italian general election, 1876
All 508 seats to the Italian Chamber of Deputies
Prime Minister before election; Agostino Depretis ; Historical Left	Elected Prime Minister ; Agostino Depretis ; Historical Left

Last updated April 10, 2019

The Italian general election of 1876 was held in Italy on November 5, with a second round of voting on November 12.^[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.

Electoral 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.

The Left group, later called Historical Left by historians to distinguish it from the left-wing groups of the 20th century, was a liberal and reformist parliamentary group in Italy during the second half of the 19th century. The members of the Left were also known as Democrats or Ministerials. Differently by his Right counterpart, the Left was the result of coalition who represented Northern and Southern middle class, urban bourgeoisie, small businessmen, journalists and academics. It also supported a right to vote and the public school for all children. Moreover, the party was against the high taxation's policies promoted by the Right. Since the 1890s, the Left showed conservative tendencies, breaking strikes and protests and promoting a colonialist policy in Africa.

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.

Agostino Depretis was an Italian statesman and politician. He was the Prime Minister of Italy for several times between 1876 and 1887 and leader of the Historical Left parliamentary group for more than a decade. He is the fourth-longest serving Prime Minister in Italian history, after Benito Mussolini, Giovanni Giolitti and Silvio Berlusconi. Depretis is widely considered one of the most powerful and important politicians in Italian history.

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

The Right group, later called Historical Right by historians to distinguish it from the right-wing groups of the 20th century, was an Italian parliamentary group during the second half of the 19th century. Since 1876, the Historical Right constituted the Constitutional opposition toward the left governments. Since 1882, its members were usually labeled as Constitutionals or Liberal-Conservatives, especially during the leadership of Rudinì and Sonnino. Few prime ministers after 1852 were party men; instead they accepted support where they could find it, and even the governments of the Historical Right during the 1860s included leftists.

Marco Minghetti was an Italian economist and statesman.

Bologna is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna Region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy, at the heart of a metropolitan area of about one million people.

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]

A snap election is an election called earlier than expected.

Tuscany is a region in central Italy with an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants (2013). The regional capital is Florence (Firenze).

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,084 inhabitants in 2013, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.

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

Parties and leaders

Party		Ideology	Leader
	Historical Left	Liberalism, Centrism	Agostino Depretis
	Historical Right	Conservatism, Monarchism	Marco Minghetti

Results

← Summary of May 1876 Chamber of Deputies election results →
Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/−

	Historical Left	243,319	70.2	414	+182
	Historical Right	97,726	28.2	94	−182
	Others	5,530	1.6	0	±0
Invalid/blank votes		11,245	–	–	–
Total		358,253	100	508	±0
Registered voters/turnout		605,007	59.2	–	–
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

Popular vote

Historical Left			70.2%
Historical Right			28.2%
Others			1.6%

Parliamentary seats

Historical Left			81.5%
Historical Right			18.5%

Related Research Articles

General elections were held in Denmark on 20 November 2001. For the first time since the 1924 elections, the Social Democrats did not win the most seats. Anders Fogh Rasmussen of the centre-right Venstre became Prime Minister in coalition with the Conservative People's Party, as the head of the first Rasmussen government, with the support from Danish People's Party.

General elections were held in Sweden on 19 September 1976. Although the Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party, winning 152 of the 349 seats in the Riksdag, a coalition government was formed with the Centre Party, the People's Party and the conservative Moderate Party, which formed Sweden's first non-socialist government since 1936. Centre Party leader Thorbjörn Fälldin, who had widely been expected to take over the government in the previous election of 1973, was appointed Prime Minister, the first not from the Swedish Social Democratic Party since Axel Pehrsson-Bramstorp's brief interregnum 40 years earlier.

General elections were held in Sweden on 16 September 1979. Although the Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party, winning 154 of the 349 seats in the Riksdag, the liberal interim government of Ola Ullsten was succeeded by another centre-right coalition government composed of the People's Party, the Moderate Party and the Centre Party, led by Centre Party leader Thorbjörn Fälldin. The three parties together won 175 seats, compared to the 174 won by the Social Democrats and Communists. It was the only time that non-socialist parties retained power in an election between 1928 and 2010. The Moderates dramatically increased their representation in the Riksdag, becoming the largest party of the non-socialist bloc, a position they have maintained ever since.

The Historical Far Left, originally known as Far Left, Radical Extreme, simply The Extreme, or Party of Democracy, was a parliamentary group and coalition of Radical, Republican and Socialist politicians in Italy during the second half of the 19th century.

General elections were held in Italy on 27 January 1861, with a second round on 3 February. The newly elected Parliament first convened in Turin on 4 March 1861, where, thirteen days later, it declared the unification of the country as the Kingdom of Italy.

General elections were held in Italy on 22 October 1865, with a second round of voting on 29 October. It was the second one in the history of Italy.

Bettino Ricasoli resigned as Prime Minister of Italy on 10 April 1867, due to a recalcitrant Italian Chamber. The chamber disapproved of his agreements with the Vatican regarding the repatriation of certain religious properties. Subsequent to his resignation, general elections were held in Italy on 10 March 1867; with the second round of voting on 17 March 1867. These snap elections resulted in Urbano Rattazzi being elected once again to office.

General elections were held in Italy on 20 November 1870, with a second round of voting on 27 November. They were a snap election, called by Prime Minister Giovanni Lanza to take advantage by the Capture of Rome and to give parliamentary representation to the future capital of Italy.

The 1874 Italian general election was held in Italy on 8 November, with a second round of voting on 15 November. They were a snap election, called by Prime Minister Marco Minghetti to strengthen his majority.

General elections were held in Italy on 16 May 1880, with a second round of voting on 23 May.

General elections were held in Italy on 29 October 1882, with a second round of voting on 5 November. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc emerged as the largest in Parliament, winning 289 of the 508 seats.

General elections were held in Italy on 23 May 1886, with a second round of voting on 30 May. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc emerged as the largest in Parliament, winning 292 of the 508 seats. As in 1882, the election was held using small multi-member constituencies with between two and five seats.

General elections were held in Italy on 23 November 1890, with a second round of voting on 30 November. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc emerged as the largest in Parliament, winning 401 of the 508 seats. As in 1886, the election was held using small multi-member constituencies with between two and five seats.

General elections were held in Italy on 6 November 1904, with a second round of voting on 13 November. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc remained the largest in Parliament, winning 339 of the 508 seats. The papal ban on Catholics voting was relaxed for the first time, and three Catholics were elected.

General elections were held in Italy on 7 March 1909, with a second round of voting on 14 March. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc remained the largest in Parliament, winning 329 of the 508 seats.

The Dissident Left, commonly named The Pentarchy like its five leaders, was a progressive and radical parliamentary group active in Italy during the last decades of the 19th century.

The Liberal Union, simply and collectively called Liberals, was a political alliance formed in the first years of the 20th century by the Italian Prime Minister and leader of the Historical Left Giovanni Giolitti. The alliance was formed when the Left and the Right merged in a single centrist and liberal coalition which largely dominated the Italian Parliament.

References

↑ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1047 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
1 2 3 Nohlen & Stöver, p1029
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p1028
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p1049

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[NS-1] Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1047 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7

[NS2-2] 1 2 3 Nohlen & Stöver, p1029

[3] Nohlen & Stöver, p1028

[4] Nohlen & Stöver, p1049

v t e Elections and referendums in Italy
General elections	1861 1865 1867 1870 1874 1876 1880 1882 1886 1890 1892 1895 1897 1900 1904 1909 1913 1919 1921 1924 1929 1934 1946 1948 1953 1958 1963 1968 1972 1976 1979 1983 1987 1992 1994 1996 2001 2006 2008 2013 2018 next
European elections	1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014 2019
Regional elections	1947 1949 1951 1953 1954 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1964 1965 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1973 1974 1975 1976 1978 1979 1980 1981 1983 1984 1985 1986 1988 1989 1990 1991 1993 1994 1995 1996 1998 1999 2000 2001 2003 2004 2005 2006 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2017 2018
Local elections	1946 1951 1956 1960 1964 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Referendums	1946 1974 1978 1981 1985 1987 1989 1990 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2000 2001 2003 2005 2006 2009 2011 2016 (Apr) 2016 (Dec)
See also: Elections in Abruzzo Aosta Valley Apulia Basilicata Calabria Campania Emilia-Romagna Friuli-Venezia Giulia Lazio Liguria Lombardy Marche Molise Piedmont Sardinia Sicily Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol Tuscany Umbria Veneto