European Parliament election, 1989 (Italy)

European Parliament election in Italy, 1989

← 1984 18 June 1989 1994 →
All 81 Italian seats to the European Parliament
First party Second party Third party   Leader Arnaldo Forlani Achille Occhetto Bettino Craxi Party Christian Democracy Communist Party Socialist Party Leader since 1989 1988 1976 Leader's seat Central Italy Northeast Italy Northwest Italy Last election 26 seats, 33.0% 27 seats, 33.3% 9 seats, 11.2% Seats won 26 22 12 Seat change 0 5 3 Popular vote 11,451,053 9,598,369 5,151,929 Percentage 32.9% 27.6% 14.8% Swing 0.1% 5.7% 3.6%
European election results map. Light Blue denotes provinces with a Christian Democratic plurality, Red denotes those with a Communist plurality, Brown and Gray and denotes those with an Autonomist plurality.

The third elections for the European Parliament in Italy were held on 18 June 1989.

The election was paired with a non-binding referendum about the devolution of powers to the European Economic Community, which passed with overwhelming support from voters.

The pure party-list proportional representation was the traditional electoral system of the Italian Republic since its foundation in 1946, so it had been adopted to elect the Italian representatives to the European Parliament too. Two levels were used: a national level to divide seats between parties, and a constituency level to distribute them between candidates. Italian regions were united in 5 constituencies, each electing a group of deputies. At national level, seats were divided between party lists using the largest remainder method with Hare quota. All seats gained by each party were automatically distributed to their local open lists and their most voted candidates.

For more than 35 years, Italian Communists had thought that their final victory was no more than a matter of time. However, the deindustrialization of Italy during the '80s showed that the time had expired. The decline of the traditional opponents of the Christian Democracy opened the door to new forms of protests: the Green Lists and, in Northern Italy, the Lombard League.

The government of Ciriaco De Mita did not survive to this vote: declining Italian Republican Party fired its leader Giovanni Spadolini, and the new secretary Giorgio La Malfa retired his support to the old PM. The Christian Democracy so chose a very expert new PM: Giulio Andreotti.