Introduction: a Guide to the Election and ‘Instructions for Use’

Abstract

Shortly after the Italian general election of 2006, a book about the results appeared, entitled Dov’è la vittoria? (Itanes, 2006). A pun on the Italian national anthem (which includes a line asking, precisely, ‘Where is the victory?’) the title reflected the widely held – but in many respects, misleading – view that the centre left had lost an initial advantage to scrape a narrow vote lead over a more effective adversary, with the result that its victory was a partial defeat, and the identity of the ‘real’ winner uncertain.¹ The 2008 election has given rise to no corresponding senses of uncertainty. It was won by the media tycoon, Silvio Berlusconi, whose centre right coalition took 17,394,890 votes (as compared to 14,088,968 for the centre left) and had comfortable majorities (of 58 and 33 seats) in the two branches of Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate respectively. The number of parties represented in the legislature declined dramatically, with the result that whereas there had been 14 groups in the Chamber at the end of the preceding legislature, the number now went down to six: the large Popolo della Libertà (People of Freedom, PdL) and the smaller Lega Nord (Northern League, NL) on the centre-right, and governing, side; the large Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, PD) and the smaller Italia dei Valori (Italy of Values, IdV) on the centre-left, and opposition, side; the Unione di Centro (UDC) located in the centre of the left-right spectrum, and finally, the so-called Gruppo Misto (Mixed Group) hosting the small number of independent deputies, and those representing the linguistic minorities and Italians resident abroad. This implied the likely emergence of clear-cut governing and opposition roles with the possibility of straightforwardly adversarial patterns of interaction between cohesive majority and minority coalitions – in contrast to the more nearly consensual patterns of law-making of the past.² For the same reason, it was reasonable to think that the government that took office stood a good chance of lasting for the entire legislature – in contrast to the previously unstable coalitions which, 2 The Italian General Election of 2008 since 1948, had held office for an average of 358 days each. In short, the election outcome held out the prospect of a radical break with the past – most significantly with the previous legislature which had been brought to an end by the collapse, in January, of the nine-party centre left coalition whose imminent demise media commentators had constantly predicted almost from the day it had taken office just 18 months previously. Now, Italy was said at last to have joined the ranks of the ‘advanced democracies’ with their elevated two-party concentrations of votes and seats (see the the chapter by Chiaramonte).