Italian General Elections
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.