Italian general election, 1976

Italian general election, 1976
All 630 seats in the Italian Chamber of Deputies ; 315 (of the 322) seats in the Italian Senate
Turnout	93.4%
	Election results maps for the Chamber of Deputies (on the left) and for the Senate (on the right). Light Blue denotes provinces with a Christian Democratic plurality, Red denotes those with a Communist plurality, Dark gray denotes those with a South Tyrolean People's Party plurality.
Prime Minister before election; Aldo Moro ; Christian Democracy	Elected Prime Minister ; Giulio Andreotti ; Christian Democracy

Last updated April 10, 2019

General elections were held in Italy on 20 June 1976, to select the Seventh Republican Parliament.^[1] They were the first after the voting age was lowered to 18.

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.

If Christian Democracy remained stable with around 38% of votes, Enrico Berlinguer's Italian Communist Party made a great jump winning 7 points more than four years before: this result, which was quite homogeneous in the entire society because confirmed by the electors of the age-restricted Senate,^[2] began to show the possibility of a future change of the Italian government leadership. All minor parties lost a lot of votes to the DC in the attempt to fight the Communist progress: between them, historic Italian Liberal Party was nearly annihilated. Two new leftist forces made their debut in this election: the ultra-liberal Radical Party, which had led a successful referendum on divorce, and the far-left Marxist and Maoist Proletarian Democracy.

Enrico Berlinguer was an Italian politician.

The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.

Italian Liberal Party Italian political party founded in 1922 and dissolved in 1994

The Italian Liberal Party was a liberal and conservative political party in Italy.

Electoral system

The pure party-list proportional representation had traditionally become the electoral system for the Chamber of Deputies. Italian provinces were united in 32 constituencies, each electing a group of candidates. At constituency level, seats were divided between open lists using the largest remainder method with Imperiali quota. Remaining votes and seats were transferred at national level, where they were divided using the Hare quota, and automatically distributed to best losers into the local lists.

Party-list proportional representation family of voting systems

Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of voting systems emphasizing proportional representation (PR) in elections in which multiple candidates are elected through allocations to an electoral list. They can also be used as part of mixed additional member systems.

Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This as opposed to closed list, which allows only active members, party officials, or consultants to determine the order of its candidates and gives the general voter no influence at all on the position of the candidates placed on the party list. Additionally, an open list system allows voters to select individuals rather than parties. Different systems give voter different amounts of influence. Voter's choice is usually called preference vote.

The largest remainder method is one way of allocating seats proportionally for representative assemblies with party list voting systems. It contrasts with various divisor methods.

For the Senate, 237 single-seat constituencies were established, even if the assembly had risen to 315 members. The candidates needed a landslide victory of two thirds of votes to be elected, a goal which could be reached only by the German minorities in South Tirol. All remained votes and seats were grouped in party lists and regional constituencies, where a D'Hondt method was used: inside the lists, candidates with the best percentages were elected.

The D'Hondt method or the Jefferson method is a highest averages method for allocating seats, and is thus a type of party-list proportional representation. The method described is named in the United States after Thomas Jefferson, who introduced the method for proportional allocation of seats in the United States House of Representatives in 1791, and in Europe after Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt, who described it in 1878 for proportional allocation of parliamentary seats to the parties. There are two forms: closed list and an open list.

Historical background

Although the 1970s in Italy was marked by violence, it was also a time of great social and economic progress. Following the civil disturbances of the 1960s, Christian Democracy and its allies in government (including the Socialist Party) introduced a wide range of political, social, and economic reforms. Regional governments were introduced in the spring of 1970, with elected councils provided with the authority to legislate in areas like public works, town planning, social welfare, and health. Spending on the relatively poor South was significantly increased, while new laws relating to index-linked pay, public housing, and pension provision were also passed. In 1975, a law was passed entitling redundant workers to receive at least 80% of their previous salary for up to a year from a state insurance fund.^[3] Living standards also continued to rise, with wages going up by an average of about 25% a year from the early 1970s onwards, and between 1969 and 1978, average real wages rose by 72%. Various fringe benefits were raised to the extent that they amounted to an additional 50% to 60% on wages, the highest in any country in the Western world. In addition, working hours were reduced so that by the end of the decade they were lower than any other country apart from Belgium. Some categories of workers who were laid off received generous unemployment compensation which represented only a little less than full wages, often years beyond eligibility. Initially, these benefits were primarily enjoyed by industrial workers in northern Italy where the “Hot Autumn” had its greatest impact, but these benefits soon spread to other categories of workers in other areas. In 1975, the escalator clause was strengthened in wage contracts, providing a high proportion of workers with nearly 100% indexation, with quarterly revisions, thereby increasing wages nearly as fast as prices.

Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic political party in Italy.

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.

The Western world, also known as the West, refers to various nations depending on the context, most often including at least part of Europe, Australasia, and the Americas, with the status of Latin America in dispute. There are many accepted definitions, all closely interrelated. The Western world is also known as the Occident, in contrast to the Orient, or Eastern world.

A statute of worker’s rights that was drafted and pushed into enactment in 1970 by the Socialist labour minister Giacomo Brodolini, greatly strengthened the authority of the trade unions in the factories, outlawed dismissal without just cause, guaranteed freedom of assembly and speech on the shop floor, forbade employers to keep records of the union or political affiliations of their workers, and prohibited hiring except through the state employment office.^[4]

In 1973, the Italian Communist Party's General Secretary Enrico Berlinguer launched a proposal for a "democratic alliance" with the Christian Democracy, embraced by Aldo Moro. This alliance was inspired by the Allende Government in Chile, that was composed by a left-wing coalition Popular Unity and supported by the Christian Democratic Party. After the Chilean coup of the same year, there was an approach between PCI and DC, that became a political alliance in 1976. In this time, the Berlinguer's PCI attempted also a parting from the USSR, with the launch of the "Eurocommunism" along with the Spanish Communist Party and the French Communist Party.

In July 1975, a Christian leftist, Benigno Zaccagnini, became the new Secretary of Christian Democracy.

Parties and leaders

	Ideology	Leader
Christian Democracy (DC)	Christian democracy	Benigno Zaccagnini
Italian Communist Party (PCI)	Communism	Enrico Berlinguer
Italian Socialist Party (PSI)	Democratic socialism	Francesco De Martino
Italian Social Movement-National Right (MSI-DN)	Neo-fascism	Giorgio Almirante
Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI)	Social democracy	Pier Luigi Romita
Italian Republican Party (PRI)	Social liberalism	Giovanni Spadolini
Proletarian Democracy (DP)	Communism	Mario Capanna
Italian Liberal Party (PLI)	Conservative liberalism	Valerio Zanone
Radical Party (PR)	Radicalism	Marco Pannella

Results

Faced with the rise of the PCI, many centrist politicians and businessmen began to think how to avoid the possibility of a Communist victory that could turn Italy into a Soviet-aligned State. The DC leadership thought to gradually involve the Communists in governmental policies so as to moderate their aims, as had been done with the Socialists previously. The man who was chosen to lead this attempt did not belong to the leftist wing of the DC, as had happened with the PSI moderation effort, but the moderate leader and former-PM Giulio Andreotti, so as to balance the situation and calm the markets. The first government reliant on support from the communists was thus formed, when the PCI decided to grant its external support. However this process, called National Solidarity, was dramatically ended by the terrorist attacks of the Red Brigades, which saw the kidnapping and murder of former-PM Aldo Moro. The country was shocked by these killings, and the Communists returned to full opposition. Giulio Andreotti's subsequent attempt to form a classic centre-left government with the Socialists failed, and a new general election was called for 1979.

Chamber of Deputies

← Summary of the 20 June 1976 Chamber of Deputies election results →
Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/−

	Christian Democracy	14,209,519	38.71	262	−4
	Italian Communist Party	12,614,650	34.37	228	+49
	Italian Socialist Party	3,540,309	9.64	57	−4
	Italian Social Movement-National Right	2,238,339	6.10	35	−21
	Italian Democratic Socialist Party	1,239,492	3.38	15	−14
	Italian Republican Party	1,135,546	3.09	14	−1
	Proletarian Democracy	557,025	1.52	6	New
	Italian Liberal Party	480,122	1.31	5	−15
	Radical Party	394,439	1.07	4	New
	South Tyrolean People's Party	184,375	0.50	3	±0
	PCI–PSI–PdUP	26,748	0.07	1	±0
	Others	87,014	0.24	0	±0
Invalid/blank votes		1,045,512	–	–	–
Total		37,755,090	100	630	±0
Registered voters/turnout		40,426,658	93.39	–	–
Source: Ministry of the Interior

Popular vote

DC			38.71%
PCI			34.37%
PSI			9.64%
MSI-DN			6.10%
PSDI			3.38%
PRI			3.09%
DP			1.52%
PLI			1.31%
PR			1.07%
Others			0.81%

Seats

DC			41.59%
PCI			36.19%
PSI			9.05%
MSI-DN			5.56%
PSDI			2.38%
PRI			2.22%
DP			0.95%
PLI			0.79%
PR			0.63%
Others			0.63%

Senate of the Republic

← Summary of the 20 June 1976 Senate of the Republic election results →
Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/−

	Christian Democracy	12,227,353	38.88	135	±0
	Italian Communist Party	10,637,772	33.83	116	+22
	Italian Socialist Party	3,208,164	10.20	29	−4
	Italian Social Movement	2,086,430	6.63	15	−11
	Italian Democratic Socialist Party	974,940	3.10	6	−5
	Italian Republican Party	846,415	2.69	6	+1
	Italian Liberal Party	438,265	1.39	2	−6
	PLI–PRI–PSDI	334,898	1.06	2	±0
	Radical Party	265,947	0.85	0	New
	South Tyrolean People's Party	158,584	0.50	2	±0
	Proletarian Democracy	78,170	0.25	0	New
	PCI–PSI	52,922	0.17	1	+1
	PLI–PRI	51,353	0.16	0	±0
	DC–RV–UV–UVP–PRI	22,917	0.07	1	±0
	Others	65,301	0.22	0	±0
Invalid/blank votes		1,888,027	–	–	–
Total		32,621,581	100	315	±0
Registered voters/turnout		34,928,214	93.4	–	–
Source: Ministry of the Interior

Popular vote

DC			38.88%
PCI			33.83%
PSI			10.20%
MSI			6.63%
PSDI			3.10%
PRI			2.69%
PLI			1.39%
Others			3.28%

Seats

DC			42.86%
PCI			36.83%
PSI			9.21%
MSI			4.76%
PSDI			1.90%
PRI			1.90%
PLI			0.63%
Others			1.90%

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References

↑ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1048 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
↑ While the electorate for the House had been expanded from 21-year-old citizens to 18, it had remained unvaried at 25 for the Senate.
↑ The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796 by Christopher Duggan
↑ Italy, a difficult democracy: a survey of Italian politics by Frederic Spotts and Theodor Wieser

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[NS-1] Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1048 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7

[2] While the electorate for the House had been expanded from 21-year-old citizens to 18, it had remained unvaried at 25 for the Senate.

[ReferenceA-3] The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796 by Christopher Duggan

[4] Italy, a difficult democracy: a survey of Italian politics by Frederic Spotts and Theodor Wieser

v t e Elections and referendums in Italy
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