Italian general election, 1919

Italian general election, 1919

16 November 1919
All 508 seats to the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Nicola Bombacci Don Luigi Sturzo Vittorio Emanuele Orlando Party Socialist Party People's Party Liberal Democratic Seats won 156 101 91 Seat change 104 new party new party Popular vote 1,834,792 1,167,354 904,195 Percentage 32.3% 20.5% 15.9% Swing 14.7% new party new party
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.

Electoral system

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.^[2]

Historical background

The election 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.^[3] 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.^[3] 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.

In the general election, 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).^[4]

Parties and leaders

Coalitions

Results

← Summary of the 16 November 1919 Chamber of Deputies election results →

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/−
	Italian Socialist Party	1,834,792	32.3	156	+104
	Italian People's Party	1,167,354	20.5	100	New
	Democratic Liberal Party	904,195	15.9	96	New
	Italian Social Democratic Party	622,310	10.9	60	New
	Liberal Union	490,384	8.6	41	−229
	Combatants' Party	232,923	4.1	20	New
	Radical Party	110,697	1.9	12	−50
	Economic Party	87,450	1.5	7	New
	Italian Reformist Socialist Party	82,157	1.4	6	−13
	Dissident People's Party	65,421	1.2	0	New
	Italian Republican Party	53,197	0.9	9	+1
	Independent Socialists	33,938	0.6	1	−7
Invalid/blank votes		108,674	–	–	–
Total		5,793,492	100	508	±0
Registered voters/turnout		10,239,326	56.6	–	–

First party by Region

References