Next parliamentary elections in Italy

According to the Italian constitution, the next parliamentary election in Italy must take place by May 28, 2023 at the latest.

According to the current constitutional situation, the 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the 315 members of the Senate are elected.

initial situation

Parties

The following parties or lists made it into parliament:

Center-right bearing:

Lega (L); German: League
Forza Italia (FI); German: Forward Italy
Fratelli d'Italia (FdI); German: Brothers of Italy
Noi con l'Italia (NcI); German: We with Italy

MoVimento 5 digit (M5S); German: Five Star Movement (5SB)

Center-left bearing:

Partito Democratico (PD); German: Democratic Party
Più Europe (+ E); German: More Europe
Italia Europa Insieme (I); German: Italy Europe together
Lista Civica Popolare (CP); German: Bürgerliche Volksliste
SVP - PATT

Liberi e Uguali (LeU); German: Free and equal

and the two foreign Italian parties Movimento Associativo Italiani all'Estero (MAIE) and Unione Sudamericana Emigrati Italiani (USEI).

Government formation

After the parliamentary elections in Italy in 2018 there was a stalemate between the center-right camp, in which the Lega became the strongest party, with 17% and the MoVimento 5 Stelle (M5S) with 32%.

After lengthy negotiations between the Lega and the M5S (and in the meantime also between the M5S and the Partito Democratico ), the Lega and the M5S proposed Giuseppe Conte as future head of government on May 21, 2018.

On May 23, Conte was commissioned by President Sergio Mattarella to form a government, which Conte accepted with reservations. On May 27, Mattarella rejected the appointment of Paolo Savona as Minister of the Economy on the list of ministers presented by Conte because of Savona's euro-skeptical stance. Previously, in a conversation with Di Maio and Salvini, the President had expressed his concerns about Savona's appointment and explored alternatives, as the financial markets had reacted negatively in the previous days. Conte then gave up his efforts to form a government and returned the government mandate.

Mattarella summoned the former IMF economist and savings commissioner Carlo Cottarelli for talks on May 28 and then charged him with the formation of a transitional government . Carlo Cottarelli's goal is to approve the budget in autumn and call new elections for the beginning of 2019. If parliament does not trust him, there should be new elections in autumn 2018.

On May 30, 2018, Di Maio made another suggestion to get a government made up of the five-star movement and Lega on the way. Paolo Savona, who was rejected by President Mattarella as Minister of Economic Affairs, should take over another ministry and thus pave the way for a Conte government. As a result, the formation of the Cottarelli interim government was frozen. Both Mattarella and Salvini asked for further cooling off.

After several hours of negotiations between Di Maio and Salvini, the two agreed on a new list of ministers. Giovanni Tria was proposed for the Ministry of Economic Affairs , Paolo Savona now for the Ministry of European Affairs. On the afternoon of May 31, Cottarelli returned the order to form a transitional government to President Mattarella. In the evening, Giuseppe Conte accepted the government mandate from President Mattarella, 88 days after the election on March 4, 2018.

On June 1, the Conte I cabinet was sworn in by President Mattarella.

Suffrage

The rosatellum is a ditch suffrage . In each chamber of parliament, 37% of the seats are allocated by relative majority voting in single-constituencies and 61% of the seats are allocated proportionally by proportional representation with rigid lists. Another 2% are in the international constituencies. 232 members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected by majority vote, 386 by proportional representation and twelve in the foreign constituencies. 116 senators were elected by majority vote, 193 by proportional representation and six in the international constituencies. There are also some senators for life, for example the former presidents of the Republic of Italy.

As has been the case up to now, the parties can compete in coalitions. The coalitions run in single constituencies with a common candidate.

The voter has one vote. He uses it to elect a candidate from his constituency. He can either tick the candidate or one of the lists of the coalition that supports the candidate. In the first case, the vote is distributed proportionally to the participating lists of the coalition.

There is a nationwide threshold of 3% for individual lists for participation in the distribution of proportional seats. For coalitions there is a nationwide threshold of 10%, whereby at least one list must have reached 3%. A regional threshold of 20% or two direct mandates applies to minority parties. Votes for lists with less than 1% of the vote will not be taken into account, even if the coalition has exceeded the threshold clause (with the exception of minority parties). The seats that a party receives in proportional representation are then distributed to their lists in multi-person constituencies.