Follow all the updates on the Italian elections for the country’s next government, with exit polls, projections and results live and in real time to find out who won.
Sunday the 4th of March, from 7:00 to 23:00, Italian voters went to the polls to elect the new parliament composed of 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 315 member of the Senate, plus 5 senators for life. The same day the regions of Lombardy and Lazio also voted to renew their regional presidents and administrations. The MPs will then have to find a deal and a majority to choose and then vote the new government that will lead the country for the next five years, up to 2023 – the insurgence of governmental crises or votes of no-confidence, which are frequent in the Mediterranean country, permitting. 46,604,925 Italians were called to vote for the Chamber of Deputies and 42,871,428 for the Senate seeing as only citizens aged 25 and over can vote for the latter branch of parliament. The total number of sections is 61,552.
18:30 – The secretary of the Democratic Party Matteo Renzi held a press conference to announce his resignation, at around 18:00 in Rome. “Today the political situation in Italy is one in which who has won doesn’t have the numbers to govern. A situation that emerged from the experience of the referendum a year and a half ago,” Renzi said. “Today, who was opposed to those reforms, has become a victim of that choice”. He added: “In this electoral campaign tainted by lies, there is one bigger than the others, that is that who has won said that they wouldn’t strike any deals. This, however, isn’t possible”.
17:00 – The (almost) final results of the 2018 Italian general elections: the 5-Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle) has gained the position as the most largely supported party with over 30 per cent of votes thanks to an incredible result in the South of the country where in certain areas it received up to 50 per cent of consensus. The League, previously Northern League (Lega, previously Lega Nord) has received consensus throughout the country reaching a total of 18 per cent of votes – compared to 4 per cent in the last general elections held five years ago – and has become the largest party in the centre-right coalition. On the other hand, disappointing results were achieved even in their strongholds by Forza Italia, which lost to its ally, the League, in Northern regions, and the Democratic Party (Partito Democratico) that wasn’t able to maintain its hold even on the “red” regions of the centre of the country.
The distributions of seats: according to the latest projections, this means that the 5-Star Movement has conquered 227 of the 630 seats in the Chamber of Deputies followed by the League with 122 and the Democratic Party with 104. Then Forza Italia and Brothers of Italy, both part of the centre-right coalition with the League that have won 104 and 33 seats respectively. The situation is slightly in the Senate where the Democratic Party risks becoming the fourth largest party with 51 senators out of 315, overtaken also by Forza Italia with 56. The 5-Star Movement obtained 113 seats and the League 56.
06:00 – The distribution of seats according to the latest projections
The 5-Star Movement obtains 234 seats (out of 630) in the Chamber of Deputies, followed by the League with 122 seats and the Democratic Party with 105 seats. In the Senate, the Democratic Party could become the fourth group with 50 senators (out of 315), overtaken by Brothers of Italy (53). The 5-Star Movement obtains 114 seats, the League 58.
05:40 – SkyTG24‘s projections of the number of seats awarded to each party in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, with 27,383 and 40,875 sections counted respectively out of 61,401:
Chamber of Deputies
Senate
03:20 – On the part of the defeated, the outgoing Minster of Agriculture, Maurizio Martina of the Democratic Party, states that “it’s obvious to us [his party] that this is a clear and stark defeat. The more complete evaluations will be made by secretary Matteo Renzi over the course of the day in light of the definitive results. For us this result is clearly negative”. One of the most shocking losses for the party was in the traditionally left-leaning region, Emilia-Romagna.
02:20 – French newspaper Le Monde highlights the success of the anti-European parties “even though a clear majority hasn’t emerged” from the Italian elections. In the meantime, the Euro has faced a decline following the news of the expected victory of the 5-Star Movement. After having gained value in response to the news from Germany on the formation of a new government, it then fell, according to British daily The Guardian.
Euro turns negative as #Italy election could become a major headache for #Eurozone. pic.twitter.com/wz537Ia8c5
— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) 4 marzo 2018
01:40 – The first SWG projections for the Chamber of Deputies are similar to that of the Senate, covering 15 per cent of the sample, with a statistical error of 0.78 per cent:
Monday 5 March, 00:05 – Based on the projections for the Senate, still partial and with 40 per cent of the votes counted: the centre-right coalition is at 36 per cent, the 5-Star Movement at 33 per cent, the centre-left coalition at 22 per cent and the Free and Equal party at 3 per cent. The scenario has been characterised as a “political cataclysm” by journalist Enrico Mentana, live during the Mentana Marathon on Italian TV channel La7. Turn-out is projected to be at around 73 per cent.
23:00 – This is the instant poll condicted by SWG for television broadcaster La7.
19:00 – At 19:00 the turn-out was of 58.42 per cent of electors voting for the Chamber of Deputies. In 2013, at the same time, the turnout was of 46.7 per cent, but those elections were held over the course of two days. Turn-out for regional elections reached 57.9 per cent.
The Prime Minister isn’t elected directly by the people. In the days following the elections, the President of the Republic, currently Sergio Mattarella, summons the representatives of the elected parliamentary groups to the Quirinal Palace to delineate what government, supported by what party or coalition of parties (the so-called parliamentary majority), has the sufficient numbers to obtain the Chamber of Deputies’ and Senate’s vote of confidence and, therefore, govern.
To obtain the vote of confidence all that is needed is a simple majority in both chambers: half plus one of those present in both chambers because Italy is governed by a system of perfect bicameralism, which means that the two branches of parliament have equal powers. This means that the leader of the party or coalition that has obtained more votes is then charged with the task of forming a new government.
The Italian people don’t elected the government directly because Italy is a parliamentary republic and the Constitution states that no MP is forced to express a vote of confidence for one government or another because they exercise their functions without being bound by their mandate (Article 67). Every MP is free to vote according to conscience, which means they’re not bound to follow the instructions of the party with which they’ve been elected or based on the preferences of any citizen. This is why no government is elected (directly) by citizens.
The names of the leader present on the parties’ symbols often only serve to obtain the favour of the people who are loyal to that politician. This is, for example, Silvio Berlusconi’s case: even though he has participated actively in the campaign he can’t be elected to parliament, as established by the Severino Law, even though his surname is displayed on the symbol of his party, Forza Italia.
The electoral system adopted in October 2017, known as Rosatellum (from the name of the MP who supported it, Ettore Rosato), is a hybrid law based on a mixed repartition of parliamentary seats, by two thirds according to a proportional division and by one third a majoritarian one. This means that a third of total seats (232 for the Chamber and 102 for the Senate) is assigned with a majoritarian system in single-member constituencies, that is ones where the candidate that obtains even a single vote more than any other is automatically elected.
The electoral law favours the forming of coalitions. To obtain a seat, parties must receive at least 3 per cent of the vote. This entry-point is 10 per cent for coalitions. If a party that is part of a coalition reaches a percentage between 1 and 3 per cent it doesn’t obtain any seats, but the parliamentary quota is distributed among its allies. This way the votes aren’t “lost”. This is with the exception of the Senate where a party can elect a senator if it doesn’t reach 3 per cent at the national level but manages to reach the 20 per cent mark in a single region. Candidates can’t be chosen but have been decided on beforehand by the parties. Every candidate can present themselves in a sole single-member constituency and up to five proportional colleges.
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