1919 Italian general election

16 November 1919
All 508 seats in the Chamber of Deputies 255 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	56.58%
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Nicola Bombacci Don Luigi Sturzo Vittorio Emanuele Orlando Party PSI PPI LDR Seats won 156 101 91 Seat change 104 new party New Popular vote 1,834,792 1,167,354 904,195 Percentage 32.28% 20.53% 15.91%
Prime Minister before election Francesco Saverio Nitti Radical Party Elected Prime Minister Francesco Saverio Nitti Radical Party

General elections were held in Italy on 16 November 1919.^[1] The fragmented Liberal governing coalition lost the absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies, due to the success of the Italian Socialist Party and the Italian People's Party.

Background

The elections took place in the middle of Biennio Rosso ("Red Biennium") a two-year period, between 1919 and 1920, of intense social conflict in Italy, following the First World War.^[2] The revolutionary period was followed by the violent reaction of the Fascist blackshirts militia and eventually by the March on Rome of Benito Mussolini in 1922.

The Biennio Rosso took place in a context of economic crisis at the end of the war, with high unemployment and political instability. It was characterized by mass strikes, worker manifestations as well as self-management experiments through land and factories occupations.^[2] In Turin and Milan, workers councils were formed and many factory occupations took place under the leadership of anarcho-syndicalists. The agitations also extended to the agricultural areas of the Padan plain and were accompanied by peasant strikes, rural unrests and guerrilla conflicts between left-wing and right-wing militias.

Electoral system

The new electoral law introduced in 1919 increased the electorate by more than a quarter to 11 million. It gave all those who had fought at the front in the First World War the right to vote, regardless of their age, as well as all other men over the age of 21.^[3] The old system of using single-member constituencies with two-round majority voting was abolished and replaced with proportional representation in 58 constituencies with between 5 and 20 members.^[4] The new system favoured parties such as the socialist PSI, which was able to mobilise voters through trade unions, cooperatives and other mass organisations, and the Catholic PPI, which could rely on the support of church associations.^[3]

Parties and leaders

Voter turnout

Results

The fragmented Liberal governing coalition lost the absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies, due to the success of the Italian Socialist Party and the Italian People's Party. The Socialists of Nicola Bombacci received the most votes in almost every region and especially in Emilia-Romagna (60.0%), Piedmont (49.7%), Lombardy (45.9%), Tuscany (41.7%) and Umbria (46.5%), while the People's Party were the largest party in Veneto (42.6%) and came second in Lombardy (30.1%) and the Liberal lists were stronger in Southern Italy (over 50% in Abruzzo, Campania, Basilicata, Apulia, Calabria and Sicily).^[5]

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Italian Socialist Party	1,834,792	32.28	156	+104
	Italian People's Party	1,167,354	20.53	100	New
	Liberals, Democrats and Radicals	904,195	15.91	96	New
	Social Democracy	622,310	10.95	60	New
	Liberal Union	490,384	8.63	41	−229
	Combatants' Party	232,923	4.10	20	New
	Italian Radical Party	110,697	1.95	12	−50
	Economic Party	87,450	1.54	7	New
	Italian Reformist Socialist Party	82,157	1.45	6	−13
	Radicals, Republicans, Socialists and Combatants	65,421	1.15	5	New
	Italian Republican Party	53,197	0.94	4	-4
	Independent Socialists	33,938	0.60	1	−7
Total		5,684,818	100.00	508	0
Valid votes		5,684,818	98.12
Invalid/blank votes		108,674	1.88
Total votes		5,793,492	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		10,239,326	56.58
Source: National Institute of Statistics

References

Sources

• Duggan, Christopher (2013). Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy, New York, NY: Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-973078-0