Italy: Where Voting Matters - Sarah Seeliger

The 2018 Italian General Election

The Five Star Party

The Italian general election took place on March 4th, 2018, and it was a very big event in Europe. The Five Star Party, which is said to be contreversial, has been leading the polls since it was created in 2009. This party's approach doesn't fit the customary "left - right" political scale, which was a very important factor in the general election. Since the party's new leader came on board, the Five Star Party has become even more popular than it already was. 

How the Election Works

Italy's government is run by the combination of First Past the Post and Proportional Representation. In the Italian Government, there is something called the Chamber of Deputies. It has a total of 630 seats, and 232 of them are elected by the FPTP. Then, there are 386 seats held by the PR, and 12 seats given to politicians voted on by Italian people who are living in other countries. Each Italian citizen gets one vote for each house. Each vote is counted two times: once for PR and once for individual district. The voting gets more specific. In the Senate of the Republic, which is the "upper house" of the Italian parliment, the split is similar to in the Chamber of Deputies. 

To me, the Italian government seems broadly similar to the American government. For example, we have the Senate and the House of Representatives. In Italy, they have the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic. 

Voting

In the past, the party that got 40% of the vote got automatic majority in parliment. However, this law has been eradicated. Now, many Italian parties are in general alliance, and they combine resources to create "electoral blocs" based on their seperate ideologies and platforms. This year's election was the first one in which new rules regarding amount of people from a party were in parliment went into action. 

As far as the actual polls went, there were people both new and old running for parliment. The Italian people had to choose 900 people for their parliment. The results showed that the Five Star Party was greatly supported in southern Italy, and Lega, another political party, was the main party voted for in the north. Both the democratic party and the SVP were only voted for in small parts of Italy. There were many parties that citizens could have voted for, and here they are: The League, Five Star Party (far left & center left), Forza Italia (far right & center left),  M5S (far right & center left), and the Democratic Party (center left). Most of these sections fall under the populist party. In both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, the Five Star Party and the Center Right groups had majority votes. For more specifics and party by party percentages, click the words "Election Charts", and it will take you to the charts and percentages: Election Charts.

Sources

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