1972 Italian general election
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All 630 seats in the Chamber of Deputies 316 seats needed for a majority All 315 elective seats in the Senate 162 seats needed for a majority[a] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Registered | 37,049,351 (C) · 33,739,592 (S) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 34,525,687 (C) · 93.2% (![]() 31,486,399 (S) · 93.3% ( ![]() | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() Results of the election in the Chamber and Senate | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1972 Italian general election was held in Italy on 7 May 1972.[1] The Christian Democracy (DC) remained stable with around 38% of the votes, as did the Communist Party (PCI) which obtained the same 27% it had in 1968. The Socialist Party (PSI) continued in its decline, reducing to less than 10%. The largest increase in vote share was that of the post-fascist Italian Social Movement, which nearly doubled its votes from 4.5% to about 9%, after its leader Giorgio Almirante launched the formula of the National Right, proposing his party as the sole group of the Italian right wing. After a disappointing result of less than 2%, against the 4.5% of 1968, the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity was disbanded; a majority of its members joined the PCI.
Electoral system
The electoral system for the Chamber of Deputies was pure
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 automatically elected, a goal which could be reached only by the German minorities in South Tirol. All remaining 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.
Historical background
The period of the late 1960s–1970s came to be known as the Opposti Estremismi, (from left-wing and right-wing extremists riots), later renamed anni di piombo ("
In December, four bombings struck the
Communist Secretary Luigi Longo suffered a stroke in late 1968; although partially recovering in the following months, from February 1969 he was assisted in most decisions by Enrico Berlinguer acting as cive-secretary. Longo resigned the position of party secretary in 1972, supporting the choice of Berlinguer as his successor.
Berlinguer's unexpected stance made waves: he gave the strongest speech by a major Communist leader ever heard in Moscow. He refused to "excommunicate" the Chinese communists, and directly told Leonid Brezhnev that the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact countries (which he termed the "tragedy in Prague") had made clear the considerable differences within the Communist movement on fundamental questions such as national sovereignty, socialist democracy, and the freedom of culture.
Arturo Michelini, leader of the Italian Social Movement, died in 1969, and the party's first and charismatic leader Giorgio Almirante regained control. He attempted to revitalise the party by pursuing an aggressive policy against left-wing student uprisings; the 1968 student movement had been devastating for the party's youth organisation. Following Michelini's failed approach of inserimento, Almirante introduced a double strategy of hard anti-systemic discourse combined with the creation of a broader "National Right" (Destra Nazionale) coalition.[2]
Parties and leaders
Results
Mathematically, the election seemed to give the same results of four years before, the three major parties receiving quite the same preferences. However, the success of the operation of the National Right by
Chamber of Deputies
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Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/− | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Christian Democracy (DC) | 12,912,466 | 38.66 | 266 | ±0 | |
Italian Communist Party (PCI) | 9,068,961 | 27.15 | 179 | +2 | |
Italian Socialist Party (PSI) | 3,208,497 | 9.61 | 61 | – | |
Italian Social Movement (MSI) | 2,894,722 | 8.67 | 56 | +32 | |
Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) | 1,718,142 | 5.14 | 29 | – | |
Italian Liberal Party (PLI) | 1,300,439 | 3.89 | 20 | −11 | |
Italian Republican Party (PRI) | 954,357 | 2.86 | 15 | +6 | |
Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP) | 648,591 | 1.94 | 0 | −23 | |
The Manifesto (IM) | 224,313 | 0.67 | 0 | New | |
South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP) | 153,674 | 0.46 | 3 | ±0 | |
Workers' Political Movement (MPL) | 120,251 | 0.36 | 0 | New | |
Italian (Marxist–Leninist) Communist Party (PCM–LI) | 86,038 | 0.26 | 0 | New | |
DC – UV – RV – PSDI | 34,083 | 0.10 | 1 | +1 | |
Others | 79,014 | 0.26 | 0 | ±0 | |
Invalid/blank votes | 1,122,139 | – | – | – | |
Total | 34,525,687 | 100 | 630 | ±0 | |
Registered voters/turnout | 37,049,351 | 93.19 | – | – | |
Source: Ministry of the Interior |
Results by constituency
Constituency | Total seats |
Seats won | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DC | PCI | PSI | MSI | PSDI | PLI | PRI | Others | ||
Turin | 34 | 12 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | |
Cuneo | 14 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
Genoa | 22 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Milan | 45 | 16 | 13 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | |
Como | 17 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Brescia | 20 | 12 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Mantua | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | |||||
Trentino | 10 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||||
Verona | 28 | 17 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Venice | 18 | 9 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Udine | 14 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
Bologna | 27 | 7 | 12 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | |
Parma | 20 | 6 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Florence | 16 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
Pisa | 16 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Siena | 9 | 3 | 5 | 1 | |||||
Ancona | 17 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Perugia | 11 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | ||||
Rome | 48 | 17 | 13 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | |
L'Aquila | 15 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
Campobasso | 4 | 3 | 1 | ||||||
Naples | 38 | 14 | 10 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
Benevento | 23 | 11 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Bari | 24 | 10 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | |||
Lecce | 18 | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | ||||
Potenza | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | |||||
Catanzaro | 24 | 10 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | |||
Catania | 30 | 12 | 7 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Palermo | 30 | 13 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Cagliari | 17 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |||
Aosta Valley | 1 | 1 | |||||||
Trieste | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||
Total | 630 | 266 | 179 | 61 | 56 | 29 | 20 | 15 | 4 |
Senate of the Republic
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Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/− | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Christian Democracy (DC) | 11,465,529 | 38.07 | 135 | ±0 | |
Italian Communist Party – PSIUP (PCI–PSIUP) | 8,312,828 | 27.60 | 91 | −10 | |
Italian Socialist Party (PSI) | 3,225,707 | 10.71 | 33 | – | |
Italian Social Movement (MSI) | 2,766,986 | 9.19 | 26 | +15 | |
Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) | 1,613,810 | 5.36 | 11 | – | |
Italian Liberal Party (PLI) | 1,319,175 | 4.38 | 8 | −8 | |
Italian Republican Party (PRI) | 918,440 | 3.05 | 5 | +3 | |
PCI – PSIUP – PSd'Az | 189,534 | 0.63 | 3 | ±0 | |
SVP – PPTT | 113,452 | 0.38 | 2 | ±0 | |
PCI – PSIUP – PSI | 41,833 | 0.14 | 0 | ±0 | |
PSDI – PRI | 31,953 | 0.11 | 0 | ±0 | |
DC – UV – RV – PSDI | 28,735 | 0.10 | 1 | +1 | |
Tyrol | 31,114 | 0.10 | 0 | New | |
Others | 56,961 | 0.19 | 0 | ±0 | |
Invalid/blank votes | 2,243,869 | – | – | – | |
Total | 31,486,399 | 100 | 315 | ±0 | |
Registered voters/turnout | 33,923,895 | 92.7 | – | – | |
Source: Ministry of the Interior |
Results by constituency
Constituency | Total seats |
Seats won | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DC | PCI–PSIUP | PSI | MSI | PSDI | PLI | PRI | Others | ||
Piedmont | 24 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | ||
Aosta Valley | 1 | 1 | |||||||
Lombardy | 45 | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |
Trentino-Alto Adige | 7 | 5 | 2 | ||||||
Veneto | 23 | 14 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Friuli-Venezia Giulia
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7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | |||||
Liguria | 11 | 5 | 5 | 1 | |||||
Emilia-Romagna | 22 | 6 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Tuscany | 20 | 7 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
Umbria | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | |||||
Marche | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | |||||
Lazio | 24 | 8 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Abruzzo | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | |||||
Molise | 2 | 2 | |||||||
Campania | 29 | 11 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Apulia | 21 | 9 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | |||
Basilicata | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | |||||
Calabria | 12 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | ||||
Sicily | 29 | 11 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
Sardinia | 9 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||||
Total | 315 | 135 | 91 | 33 | 26 | 11 | 8 | 5 | 6 |
Maps
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/1972_Italian_general_election_-_Seat_Distribution.svg/550px-1972_Italian_general_election_-_Seat_Distribution.svg.png)
References
- ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
- ^ Gallego, 1999, pp. 7–8.
- ^ taking into account the Senators for life, which accounted for 8 seats at the time the election took place
- ^ In a joint list with the PSIUP.
- ^ De Martino also served as secretary from 1963 to 1968 and from 1969 to 1970.
- ^ a b c d PSI and PSDI ran in a unified list in the 1968 Italian general election.
- ^ Almirante also served as secretary from 1948 to 1950.
- ^ Tanassi also served as secretary from 1964 to 1966.