Acerbo law

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The Acerbo Law ( Italian Legge Acerbo ), named after the politician Giacomo Acerbo , was an Italian electoral law . It was passed on November 18, 1923 and allowed the National Fascist Party (PNF) under Benito Mussolini a majority of votes in the Chamber of Deputies . The law only came into effect once, in the parliamentary elections in Italy in 1924 .

History and content

After the March on Rome in 1922, Mussolini became Prime Minister of Italy. In the Chamber of Deputies after the 1921 election, however, he only had the votes of 35 fascist deputies and ten additional votes from the national list , which was also under his leadership. Mussolini was dependent on a coalition with other parties, which could easily break up, so there was a risk that he was of King Victor Emmanuel III. would be fired. To change this, the voting procedure should be adapted.

With the Acerbo Act , the principle of proportional representation was replaced by a provision that guaranteed the electoral list with the highest number of votes two thirds of the seats, provided that it was able to collect at least 25 percent of the votes nationally, regardless of the results of the individual constituencies. The remaining third should be divided proportionally among the remaining parties . The Acerbo law provided for the division of Italy into 16 constituencies and also lowered the age of eligibility for parliament from 30 to 25 years.

Armed squadristi were present in the Chamber of Deputies during the legislative vote . The socialist MP Filippo Turati (1857-1932) mentioned the prevailing atmosphere of intimidation during the parliamentary deliberations and spoke of a "law whose passage is recommended to you by the 300,000 muskets of God's army and his new prophet." the fascists under Mussolini's leadership based on Law 355 of the 535 seats, which corresponded to 66.4% of the seats, but with about 4.3 million votes had only achieved a share of 60.1%.

Referring to a thesis of the historian Giovanni Sabbatucci, Alessandro Visani describes the adoption of the law as “a classic case of suicide by a parliament” and compares it with the Enabling Act , with which the legislative power was in fact completely transferred to Adolf Hitler , or with the French National Assembly that transferred power to Pétain in July 1940 .

In 1924, after the lists were drawn up before the elections, the NZZ wrote of a “restriction of voting rights”; According to the new electoral law, the Italian people “no longer have to vote for their deputies, they only have to decide whether they want to go with the government or with the opposition. And the latter is made more difficult for him in every way. ”In the elections in 1929 and 1934 there were no longer any lists from the government or the opposition, instead the Italian men, under restrictive census law, could only vote yes or no to a single one from the Great Fascist Council the created list. In 1939 the Chamber of Deputies was abolished and only in 1946 , after the war , there was another parliamentary election.

literature

  • Alessandro Visani: La conquista della maggioranza. Mussolini, il Pnf e le elezioni del 1924 . Fratelli Frilli Editori, Genoa 2004. ISBN 88-7563-037-2 (Italian).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Statistica delle elezioni generali politiche per la XXVII legislatura. (April 6, 1924) . Rome 1924. (Italian)
  2. ↑ Federico Boffa: Italy and the Antitrust Law: an Efficient Delay? , accessed on November 19, 2020 (English).
  3. ↑ Premio di maggioranza (1924) , Storia Camera (Italian).
  4. ^ Camera dei Deputati: Minutes of the session on Sunday, July 15, 1923. p. 10658 (Italian).
  5. ↑ Quoted from: RAC Parker : Fischer Weltgeschichte, Volume 34: The Twentieth Century I. 1918–1945. Frankfurt / Main 1964.
  6. ^ Mussolini's Elections , NZZ , February 27, 1924, First Morning Gazette, title page; Quote: "... the new electoral law with its unheard-of majority bonuses and its strange amalgamation of national and regional constituencies means such a preference for voters loyal to the government that every fight seems hopeless."
  7. ↑ Sistema plebiscitario (1929-1934) , website of the Italian Parliament, accessed on November 29, 2020 (Italian).