Italian General Elections
AS OF 2026-07-22 · 42 CONTESTS · general election, 25 September 2022 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
Next election · general election, expected 2027 · Capital · Rome in the metro rankings →
Where the chamber sits · 5.0 of 10, left to right, spread 1.8 →
Every Italian general election from unification in 1861 to 2022: the Liberal monarchy, the Fascist seizure and its plebiscites labelled as such, the First Republic's Christian Democratic decades and the Second Republic's upheavals, for novices and experts alike.
General elections
42
1861–2022
Latest
2022
Brothers of Italy (FdI) · Giorgia Meloni
Chamber seats today
400
104 for a majority
Republican turnout peak
93.8%
the Cold War contests drew near-total participation
The chronology
Every general election, newest first, across six eras, including, clearly labelled, the Fascist plebiscites of 1929 and 1934. Click any election for the full result and the story.
The Second Republic · 1994–2022
Tangentopoli destroyed the old parties, and Silvio Berlusconi's 1994 debut inaugurated an era of alternating coalitions, new electoral laws, the Five Star quake of 2013, and in 2022 the country's first woman prime minister at the head of its most right-wing government since the war.
Brothers of Italy (FdI) 69Democratic Party – IDP (PD–IDP) 57Five Star Movement (M5S) 41others 155
Five Star Movement (M5S) 133Democratic Party (PD) 86League (Lega) 73others 244
Democratic Party 345People of Freedom 125Five Star Movement 109others 4
People of Freedom 344Democratic Party 246UDC 36others 3
Independent 348Forza Italia 281Autonomy Liberty Democracy (ALD) 1
The Daisy 241Forza Italia (FI) 62Democrats of the Left (DS) 31others 234
Independent 285Forza Italia (FI) 37National Alliance (AN) 28others 190
Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) 38Forza Italia (FI) 30Italian People's Party (PPI) 29others 475
The First Republic · 1946–1992
The 1946 vote — the first with women's suffrage, held alongside the referendum that abolished the monarchy — opened five decades in which Christian Democracy led every government, the West's largest Communist party led the opposition, and the same parties returned in endlessly reshuffled coalitions.
Christian Democracy 206DC 206Democratic Party of the Left 107
DC 234Christian Democracy 234Italian Communist Party 177
Christian Democracy 225DC 225Italian Communist Party 198
Christian Democracy (DC) 262Italian Communist Party (PCI) 201Italian Socialist Party (PSI) 62others 12
Christian Democracy (DC) 262Italian Communist Party (PCI) 228Italian Socialist Party (PSI) 57others 8
Christian Democracy (DC) 266Italian Communist Party (PCI) 179Italian Socialist Party (PSI) 61others 1
DC 266Christian Democracy 266Italian Communist Party 177
Christian Democracy 260DC 260Italian Communist Party 166
Christian Democracy 273DC 273Italian Communist Party 140
DC 263Christian Democracy 112Italian Communist Party 52others 8
Christian Democracy 305DC 305Popular Democratic Front 183
Christian Democracy 207DC 207Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity 115
The Fascist plebiscites · 1929–1934
The single-list votes of 1929 and 1934 offered Italians one Fascist slate to approve or reject, under a regime that controlled the press, the police and the count. They are recorded here as rituals of the dictatorship, not elections.
Proportional revolution and the Fascist seizure · 1919–1924
Proportional representation in 1919 shattered the liberal order, making socialists and the new Catholic party the largest forces. The 1921 election brought Mussolini's Fascists into parliament; the violence-soaked 1924 contest, under the rigged Acerbo premium, ended Italian democracy for two decades.
National List 355Italian People's Party 39Unitary Socialist Party 24others 28
Italian Socialist Party 123PSI 123Italian People's Party 108
Italian Socialist Party 156PSI 156Italian People's Party 100
The Giolittian era · 1897–1913
Giovanni Giolitti managed Italy's politics for a generation, and the 1913 election — the first under near-universal male suffrage — multiplied the electorate five-fold, bringing Catholics and socialists flooding into a system built to exclude them.
Liberal Party 270Italian Radical Party 62Italian Socialist Party 52others 34
Ministerials 336Italian Radical Party 45Italian Socialist Party 41
Ministerials 339Constitutional opposition 76Italian Radical Party 37
Ministerials 296Constitutional opposition 116Radical opposition 34
Historical Left 327PRI 25PSI 15others 141
The Liberal monarchy · 1861–1895
United Italy's first elections chose a parliament for a fraction of the population — a literate, taxpaying franchise of around two percent at first. The Historical Right and Left traded power through trasformismo, the art of absorbing opponents rather than beating them.
Historical Left 334Historical Right 104Historical Far Left 47others 8
Historical Left 323others 185
Historical Left 401others 107
Historical Left 292Historical Right 145Historical Far Left 45
Historical Left 289Historical Right 147Historical Far Left 44others 9
Historical Left 218Historical Right 171Dissident Left 119
Historical Left 414Historical Right 94
Historical Right 276Historical Left 232
Historical Right 233Historical Left 195others 80
Historical Left 225Historical Right 151others 117
Historical Right 183others 260
Historical Right 342others 101
The long arc in charts
Hover any point for the exact figure. The plebiscites are excluded.
Turnout, 1861–2022
A two-percent franchise in 1861, mass suffrage from 1913, then the First Republic's extraordinary 90-plus percent, and the modern slide to 63.9% in 2022, the lowest ever.
The DC and the PCI, 1946–1992
The First Republic in two lines: Christian Democracy never out of power, the West's largest Communist party never in it, closest in 1976, both destroyed by 1994.
Records & superlatives
Highest republican turnout
93.8%
1953 general election
Lowest republican turnout
63.9%
2022 general election
Highest vote share
49.8%
Independent, 2006
Elections with DC the largest party
12
every election of the First Republic, 1946–1992
Changes of PM at the ballot box
16
most Italian governments have changed between elections, not at them
Republic's first vote
1946
women vote, and the monarchy falls the same day
How Italian general elections work
A land of electoral laws
Italy rewrites its electoral system more than any comparable democracy: pure PR until 1993, then mixed systems nicknamed Mattarellum, Porcellum and Rosatellum. Each rewrite reshapes coalitions before a single vote is cast.
Two chambers, equal power
The Chamber and Senate have identical powers and both invest the government, so a majority in one and not the other, as in 2013, means paralysis. Reforms in 2020 cut the chambers to 400 and 200 seats.
Coalitions before the vote
Since 1994 parties have run in pre-electoral coalitions of left and right, so election night usually crowns an alliance rather than a party, though the governments that follow often outlive neither.
Governments between elections
Italy has had nearly seventy governments since 1946 but only nineteen elections: most cabinets change between votes, through party splits and palace crises: the elections set the board, not the game.