Italian general election, 1909

Italian general election, 1909
All 508 seats to the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy
Prime Minister before election; Giovanni Giolitti ; Historical Left	Elected Prime Minister ; Giovanni Giolitti ; Historical Left

Last updated April 10, 2019

General elections were held in Italy on 7 March 1909, with a second round of voting on 14 March.^[1] The "ministerial" left-wing bloc remained the largest in Parliament, winning 329 of the 508 seats.^[2]

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 system

The election was held using 508 single-member constituencies. However, prior to the election the electoral law was amended so that candidates needed only an absolute majority of votes to win their constituency, abolishing the second requirement of receiving the votes of at least one-sixth of registered voters.^[3]

Historical background

The right-wing leader Sidney Sonnino succeed to Giolitti's protegé Alessandro Fortis as Prime Minister on 1906. But his cabinet had a short lift; anyway Sonnino formed an alliance with France on the colonial expansion in North Africa. His government lasted only few months.

Sidney Costantino, Baron Sonnino was an Italian statesman, 19th Prime Minister of Italy and twice served briefly as one, in 1906 and again from 1909 to 1910. He also was the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs during the First World War, representing Italy at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.

Alessandro Fortis was an Italian politician who served as the 18th Prime Minister of Italy from 1905 to 1906. He was Italy's first Jewish Prime Minister.

France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

After Sonnino's resignation Giovanni Giolitti returned to power in 1906. Many critics accused Giolitti of manipulating the elections, piling up majorities with the restricted suffrage at the time, using the prefects just as his contenders. However, he did refine the practice in the elections of 1904 and 1909 that gave the liberals secure majorities.

Giovanni Giolitti was an Italian statesman. He was the Prime Minister of Italy five times between 1892 and 1921. He is the second-longest serving Prime Minister in Italian history, after Benito Mussolini. He was a prominent leader of the Historical Left and the Liberal Union. Giolitti is widely considered one of the most powerful and important politicians in Italian history and, due to his dominant position in Italian politics, he was accused by critics of being a parliamentary dictator.

In the election, The Right lost his important position in the Parliament, replaced by the Radical Party of Ettore Sacchi, who became an ally of Giolitti and the Italian Socialist Party of Filippo Turati, which continued its strong opposition to the Left governments.

The Italian Radical Party, also known as the Historical Radical Party, was a radical, republican, secularist and social-liberal political party in Italy.

Ettore Sacchi was an Italian lawyer and politician. He was one of the founders and main leaders of the Italian Radical Party.

The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy. Founded in Genoa in 1892, the PSI dominated the Italian left until after World War II, when it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party. The Socialists came to special prominence in the 1980s, when their leader Bettino Craxi, who had severed the residual ties with the Soviet Union and re-branded the party as liberal-socialist, served as Prime Minister (1983–1987). The PSI was disbanded in 1994 as a result of the Tangentopoli scandals. Prior to World War I, future dictator Benito Mussolini was a member of the PSI.

Parties and leaders

	Ideology	Leader
Historical Left	Liberalism, Centrism	Giovanni Giolitti
Italian Socialist Party	Socialism, Revolutionary socialism	Filippo Turati
Italian Radical Party	Radicalism, Republicanism	Ettore Sacchi
Historical Right	Conservatism, Monarchism	Sydney Sonnino
Italian Republican Party	Republicanism, Radicalism	Napoleone Colajanni
Catholic Electoral Union	Clericalism, Christian democracy	Ottorino Gentiloni

Results

← Summary of March 1909 Chamber of Deputies election results →
Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/−

	Historical Left	995,290	54.4	329	−10
	Italian Socialist Party	347,615	19.0	41	+12
	Italian Radical Party	181,242	9.9	48	+11
	Historical Right	108,029	5.9	44	−32
	Italian Republican Party	81,461	4.4	23	−1
	Catholic Electoral Union	73,015	4.0	18	+15
	Constitutional Independent	41,213	2.2	0	New
Vacant		–	–	5	±0
Invalid/blank votes		61,500	–	–	–
Total		1,903,687	100	508	±0
Registered voters/turnout		2,930,473	65.0	–	–
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

Popular vote

Left			54.03%
PSI			18.87%
PR			9.84%
Right			5.86%
PRI			4.42%
UECI			3.96%
Others			3.01%

Parliamentary seats

Left			64.76%
PR			9.45%
Right			8.66%
PSI			8.07%
PRI			4.43%
UECI			3.54%
Vacant			3.98%

First party by Region

Region
Abruzzo-Molise	Left	PSI	PR
Apulia	Left	PSI	PR
Basilicata	Left	PSI	PR
Calabria	Left	PR	PSI
Campania	Left	PR	PSI
Emilia-Romagna	PSI	Left	PR
Lazio	Left	PSI	PR
Liguria	Left	PSI	PR
Lombardy	Left	PSI	PR
Marche	Left	PSI	PR
Piedmont	Left	PSI	PR
Sardinia	Left	PSI	PR
Sicily	Left	PR	PSI
Tuscany	PSI	Left	PR
Umbria	PSI	Left	PR
Veneto	Left	PSI	PR

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References

↑ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1047 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p1083
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p1039

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

[2] Nohlen & Stöver, p1083

[3] Nohlen & Stöver, p1039

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