The Italian parliamentary election of 2022: the populist radical right takes charge

Abstract

The Italian parliamentary election of 2022 was called following Mario Draghi’s resignation in June. The campaign took place – for the first time in Italian history – over the summer. Yet, its crucial moments occurred in the very first days, when parties had to present the respective coalition strategies. In a matter of weeks, Italy’s political system moved from the embryonic tripolarism inaugurated in 2013 to a full-fledged quadripolarism. The election saw less than two thirds of the eligible voting population participate – a new all-time low for Italian general elections. The result awarded a clear victory to the center-right coalition, due to its successes in most FPTP constituencies. Given the clear indications which emerged from the election results, the process of government formation took less than a month overall. This election can be considered historical in at least two ways. The first is the formation of a government led for the first time by a female politician, Giorgia Meloni. The second is the political composition of her government, with two populist radical right parties in control of about 80 percent of the votes cast in favour of the governing coalition.

Keywords:

• Coalitions
• electoral systems
• Giorgia Meloni
• populist radical right
• turnout decline

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Other recent reports in the Elections in Context series include Faas and Klingelhöfer (2022); Durovic (2022); and Lopes (2023).

2 Note that after the 2020 constitutional referendum, the size of the two chambers of parliament has been reduced to 400 (Chamber) and 200 (Senate) members respectively. Also, for the first time in history, 18-year old citizens have been entitled to vote in both the Chamber and the Senate elections (up until 2018, the minimum voting age for the Senate was 25).

3 However, it is also worth mentioning that the legislature inaugurated in 2022 marks a drop in female presence in both the Parliament (31 percent as compared to 35 percent in 2018) and the Council of Ministers (25 percent as compared to 35 percent in the Draghi government).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Diego Garzia

Diego Garzia is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Lausanne, and also a recurrent Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute in Fiesole. His research interests include parties, elections, and political behaviour in comparative and longitudinal perspective. He currently holds positions in the Scientific Committee of the Italian National Election Study (ITANES) and in the Steering Committee of the Consortium of National Election Studies (CNES). [[email protected]]