Next Italian general election

Next Italian general election

No later than 23 May 2018[1]

All 630 seats of the Chamber of Deputies and all elective 315 seats of the Senate of the Republic   Leader Matteo Renzi Beppe Grillo Silvio Berlusconi Party Democratic Party Five Star Movement Forza Italia Leader since 15 December 2013 4 October 2009 18 January 1994 Last election 297 C / 111 S, 25.4% 109 C / 54 S, 25.6% 98 C / 98 S, 21.6% Current seats 303 C / 114 S 91 C / 35 S 54 C / 42 S   Leader TBD Angelino Alfano Matteo Salvini Party Italian Left New Centre-Right Lega Nord Leader since TBD 15 November 2013 15 December 2013 Last election new party new party 18 C / 18 S, 4.1% Current seats 32 C / 8 S 24 C / 26 S 14 C / 12 S

Incumbent Prime Minister Matteo Renzi Democratic Party

The next Italian general election is due to be held no later than 23 May 2018 and will be called following the dissolution or expiry of the term started on 29 April 2013.

Under the current Constitution, voters would elect 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 315 members of the Senate of the Republic for the 18th Parliament, but a constitutional reform proposed by the government would see the Senate replaced in this election with an indirectly elected body, composed of 100 members: 95 selected from regional councils and 5 appointed by the President.^[2] This reform has been already passed by the Chamber and Senate, but will require a second compliant passage in both and, possibly, a referendum to enter into effect.^[3][4]

Background

At the 2013 general election neither of the two main coalitions, the centre-right led by Silvio Berlusconi and the centre-left led by Pier Luigi Bersani, won an outright majority in Parliament, partly due to the strong showing by the Five Star Movement (M5S).

After a failed attempt by Bersani, then-secretary of the Democratic Party (PD), to form a government during the final days of the first presidential term of Giorgio Napolitano, the re-elected President gave Enrico Letta, Bersani's deputy, the task of forming a grand coalition government. Letta eventually formed a cabinet composed of members of the PD, Berlusconi's The People of Freedom (PdL) – replaced by the New Centre-Right (NCD) in November 2013 –, Civic Choice (SC), the Union of the Centre (UdC), one member of the Italian Radicals and three independents.^[5]

Following the election of Matteo Renzi as the new PD secretary in December 2013, there were persistent leadership tensions culminating in Letta's resignation as Prime Minister in February 2014. Renzi subsequently formed a cabinet composed of the same parties who had lately supported Letta, but in a new fashion^[6] The new Prime Minister, who had a strong mandate from his party, was reinforced by two key events: the PD's strong showing in the European Parliament elections three months later and the election of Sergio Mattarella, a fellow Democrat, in the 2015 presidential election.

Since 2013 opinion polls (see below) have registered the PD's strength and a steady rise of the M5S and Lega Nord (LN) under Matteo Salvini (who launched a bid to become the leader of a much fractured centre-right), while emphasizing a decline of Forza Italia (the party which replaced the PdL in November 2013) and the virtual disappearance of Civic Choice (SC), after Mario Monti stepped down as leader.

New electoral system

A new electoral law, known as Italicum, was approved on 4 May 2015.^[7]

The electoral system is based on party-lists representation and will be applicable only to the Chamber of Deputies from 1 July 2016.

According to this new system, parties are not allowed to team up or form coalitions. A run-off ballot between the two largest parties decides which party gets a majority bonus, which should make sure the winning party's leader becomes prime minister with a governing majority. The majority bonus is assigned without a run-off only if the largest party reaches 40% in the first round. The country is divided into 20 electoral districts and these are subdivided into a total of 100 constituencies, each electing about 6 deputies. Voters can pick up a party list as well as the candidates, but not the ones at the top of the slates, who are automatically elected if their party wins a seat in their constituency. Each party must present its list in alternating gender order, and voter preferences must be given to a man and a woman in the interests of gender equity. An amendment, known as the "Erasmus amendment", made sure that Italian students studying abroad via the Erasmus Programme can vote.

Parties and leaders

This is a list of the parties (and their respective leaders) which would likely participate in the election.

Party		Ideology	Leader
	Democratic Party (PD)	Social democracy, Christian left	Matteo Renzi
	Five Star Movement (M5S)	Populism, Anti-establishment	Beppe Grillo
	Forza Italia (FI)	Liberal conservatism, Christian democracy	Silvio Berlusconi
	Italian Left (SI)	Democratic socialism, Social democracy	TBD
	New Centre-Right (NCD)	Christian democracy, Conservatism	Angelino Alfano
	Lega Nord (LN)	Regionalism, Right-wing populism	Matteo Salvini
	Us with Salvini (NcS)
	Brothers of Italy (FdI)	National conservatism, Nationalism	Giorgia Meloni

Opinion polling

15-day average trend line of poll results from February 2013 to April 2016, with each line corresponding to a political party.

References

1. Italian Constitution, Art.61
2. "Italian parties reach deal on Senate reform". Reuters. June 21, 2014. Retrieved June 25, 2014.
3. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/49d553ec-71e3-11e5-9b9e-690fdae72044.html#axzz3pqfrJMXD
4. http://www.italy24.ilsole24ore.com/art/politics/2015-10-13/via-libera-riforma-senato-130528.php?uuid=ACx78JFB
5. Dionisi, Brenda (May 9, 2013). "It's a governissimo!". The Florentine. Retrieved September 24, 2013.
6. "Renzi: con 47, 8 anni di media, è il governo più giovane di sempre". Corriere Della Sera. 21 February 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
7. Major election reform in Italy as parliament approves new law. The Telegraph. Retrieved 9 May 2015.