1992 Italian general election

The pure party-list proportional representation had traditionally become the electoral system for the Chamber of Deputies. Italian provinces were united in 32 constituencies, each electing a group of candidates. At constituency level, seats were divided between open lists using the largest remainder method with Imperiali quota. The remaining votes and seats were transferred at national level, where they were divided using the Hare quota, and automatically distributed to best losers into the local lists.

For the Senate, 237 single-seat constituencies were established, even if the assembly had risen to 315 members. The candidates needed a landslide victory of two thirds of votes to be elected, a goal which could be reached only by the German minorities in South Tirol. All remained votes and seats were grouped in party lists and regional constituencies, where a D'Hondt method was used: inside the lists, candidates with the best percentages were elected.

In 1991 the Italian Communist Party split into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), led by Achille Occhetto, and the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), headed by Armando Cossutta. Occhetto, leader of the PCI since 1988, stunned the party faithfully assembled in a working-class section of Bologna with a speech heralding the end of communism, a move now referred to in Italian politics as the svolta della Bolognina (Bolognina turning point). The collapse of the communist governments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had convinced Occhetto that the era of Eurocommunism was over, and he transformed the PCI into a progressive left-wing party, the PDS. A third of the PCI's former members, led by Cossutta, refused to join the PDS, and instead founded the Communist Refoundation Party.[2]

On 17 February 1992, judge Antonio Di Pietro had Mario Chiesa, a member of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), arrested for accepting a bribe from a Milan cleaning firm. The Italian Socialist Party distanced themselves from Chiesa. Bettino Craxi called Mario Chiesa mariuolo, or "villain", a "wild splinter" of the otherwise clean PSI. Upset over this treatment by his former colleagues, Chiesa began to give information about corruption implicating his colleagues. This marked the beginning of the Mani pulite investigation; news of political corruption began spreading in the press.

Umberto Bossi at the first Northern League rally in Pontida, 1990.

In February 1991, the Northern League, which was first launched as an upgrade of the Northern Alliance in December 1989, was officially transformed into a party through the merger of various regional parties, notably including Lombard League and Venetian League, under the leadership of Umberto Bossi. These continue to exist as "national sections" of the federal party, which presents itself in regional and local contests as "Northern League–Lombard League", "Northern League–Venetian League", "Northern League Piedmont", and so on.[3][4][5]

The League exploited resentment against Rome's centralism (with the famous slogan Roma ladrona, which loosely means "Rome big thief") and the Italian government, common in northern Italy as many northerners felt that the government wasted resources collected mostly from northerners' taxes.[6] Cultural influences from bordering countries in the North and resentment against illegal immigrants were also exploited. The party's electoral successes began roughly at a time when public disillusionment with the established political parties was at its height. The Tangentopoli corruption scandals, which invested most of the established parties, were unveiled from 1992 on.[4][5] However, contrarily to what many pundits observed at the beginning of the 1990s, LN became a stable political force and it is by far the oldest party among those represented in the Italian Parliament.

The Northern League's first electoral breakthrough was at the 1990 regional elections, but it was with the 1992 general election that the party emerged as a leading political actor. Having gained 8.7% of the vote, 56 deputies and 26 senators,[7] it became the fourth largest party of the country and within Parliament.

Seat distribution by constituency for the Chamber of Deputies (left) and Senate (right).

Christian Democracy (DC) suffered a significant swing against it, but the coalition it had led prior to the elections managed to retain a small majority. Opposition parties won a significant amount of support. However, the largest opposition party, the Italian Communist Party, had suffered an internal crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union, with the bulk of the party reforming into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) and a minority forming the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC). Collectively, they suffered a 4% swing against them, with the PDS losing a third of its seats compared to 1987. As such, the opposition was divided. The biggest winner of the election was the Northern League, which was not inclined to alliances at the time due to its separatist leanings.

The resulting parliament was therefore weak and difficult to bring to an agreement, and lasted only two years before new elections were held in 1994. This was accelerated by the mani pulite scandal, which began shortly before the election and expanded in scope throughout 1992 and 1993. The scandal implicated vast sections of almost every major political party in Italy in extensive corruption. This had catastrophic consequences for the political landscape as the governing parties became extremely unpopular.

The 1992-1994 parliamentary term also saw the first major change to the Italian electoral system since the late 1940s, with a 1993 referendum abolishing the clause of the electoral law which required candidates to win two-thirds of votes to be elected in the Senate's single-member districts. This essentially transformed the Senate electoral law from de facto pure proportional representation to a majoritarian additional member system. Parliament subsequently passed a new electoral law establishing a similar system for the Chamber of Deputies.

Chamber of Deputies

← Summary of the 5 April 1992 Chamber of Deputies election results →

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/−
	Christian Democracy (DC)	11,640,265	29.66	206	−28
	Democratic Party of the Left (PDS)	6,321,084	16.11	107	−70
	Italian Socialist Party (PSI)	5,343,930	13.62	92	−2
	Northern League (LN)	3,396,012	8.65	55	+54
	Communist Refoundation Party (PRC)	2,204,641	5.62	35	New
	Italian Social Movement (MSI)	2,107,037	5.37	34	−1
	Italian Republican Party (PRI)	1,722,465	4.39	27	+6
	Italian Liberal Party (PLI)	1,121,264	2.86	17	+6
	Federation of the Greens (FdV)	1,093,995	2.79	16	+3
	Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI)	1,064,647	2.71	16	−1
	The Network (LR)	730,171	1.86	12	New
	Pannella List (LP)	485,694	1.24	7	−6
	Yes Referendum (SR)	319,812	0.81	0	New
	Pensioners' Party (PP)	246,379	0.63	0	New
	Other Leagues[8]	220,559	0.56	0	New
	South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP)	198,447	0.51	3	±0
	Hunting, Fishing, Environment (CPA)	192,799	0.49	0	±0
	Federalism–Pensioners Living Men (UV–PSd'Az–SSK–UfS–Others)	154,621	0.39	1	New
	Venetian Autonomy League (LAV)	152,301	0.39	1	New
	Housewives–Pensioners League	133,717	0.34	0	New
	Autonomist Lists	94,583	0.24	0	±0
	Southern Action League (LAM)	53,759	0.14	0	New
	Autonomous Veneto (VA)	49,035	0.12	0	New
	Federalist Greens (VF)	42,647	0.11	0	New
	Aosta Valley (VdA)	41,404	0.11	1	±0
	Others	116,007	0.30	0	±0
Invalid/blank votes		2,232,489	–	–	–
Total		41,479,764	100	630	±0
Registered voters/turnout		47,486,964	87.35	–	–
Source: Ministry of the Interior

Popular vote DC   29.66% PDS   16.11% PSI   13.62% LN   8.65% PRC   5.62% MSI   5.37% PRI   4.39% PLI   2.86% FdV   2.79% PSDI   2.71% Rete   1.86% LP   1.24% Others   5.14%

Seats DC   32.70% PDS   16.98% PSI   14.60% LN   8.73% PRC   5.56% MSI   5.40% PRI   4.29% PLI   2.70% FdV   2.54% PSDI   2.54% Rete   1.90% LP   1.11% Others   0.95%

Senate of the Republic

← Summary of the 5 April 1992 Senate of the Republic election results →

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/−
	Christian Democracy (DC)	9,088,494	27.27	107	−18
	Democratic Party of the Left (PDS)	5,682,888	17.05	64	−37
	Italian Socialist Party (PSI)	4,523,873	13.57	49	+13
	Northern League (LN)	2,732,461	8.20	25	+24
	Communist Refoundation Party (PRC)	2,171,950	6.52	20	New
	Italian Social Movement (MSI)	2,171,215	6.51	16	±0
	Italian Republican Party (PRI)	1,565,142	4.70	10	+2
	Federation of the Greens	1,027,303	3.08	4	+3
	Italian Liberal Party (PLI)	939,159	2.82	4	+1
	Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI)	853,895	2.56	3	−2
	Yes Referendum (SR)	332,318	1.00	0	New
	The Network (LR)	239,868	0.72	3	New
	Pensioners' Party (PP)	215,889	0.65	0	New
	Federalism–Pensioners Living Men (UV–PSd'Az–SSK–UfS–Others)	174,713	0.52	1	New
	South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP)	168,113	0.50	3	+1
	Pannella List (LP)	166,708	0.50	0	−3
	For Calabria	143,976	0.43	2	New
	Venetian Autonomy League (LAV)	142,446	0.43	1	New
	Housewives-Pensioners League	134,327	0.40	0	New
	Lombard Alpine League (LAL)	119,153	0.36	1	New
	Hunting, Fishing, Environment (CPA)	116,395	0.35	0	±0
	Autonomist Lists	95,687	0.29	0	±0
	Autonomous Veneto (VA)	50,938	0.15	0	New
	Southern Action League (LAM)	49,769	0.15	0	New
	For Molise	48,352	0.15	1	New
	Federalist Greens (VF)	47,051	0.14	0	New
	Aosta Valley (VdA)	34,150	0.10	1	±0
	Others	151,170	0.45	0	±0
Invalid/blank votes		2,409,646	–	–	–
Total		35,651,621	100	315	±0
Registered voters/turnout		41,022,758	86.9	–	–
Source: Ministry of the Interior

Popular vote DC   27.27% PDS   17.05% PSI   13.57% LN   8.20% PRC   6.52% MSI   6.51% PRI   4.70% FdV   3.08% PLI   2.82% PSDI   2.56% Others   7.72%

Seats DC   33.97% PDS   20.32% PSI   15.56% LN   7.94% PRC   6.35% MSI   5.08% PRI   3.17% FdV   1.27% PLI   1.27% PSDI   0.95% Others   4.13%