Italian general election, 1972

← 1968

7 May 1972

1976 →

All 630 seats in the Italian Chamber of Deputies
316 seats were needed for a majority in the Chamber
315 (of the 323) seats in the Italian Senate

Turnout

93.2%

	Majority party	Minority party	Third party

Leader	Arnaldo Forlani	Enrico Berlinguer	Francesco De Martino
Party	Christian Democracy	Communist Party	Socialist Party
Leader since	1969	1972	1963
Leader's seat	XVIII - The Marches	XX - Latium	XI - Romagna
Last election	266 & 135 seats, 39.1%	177 & 101 seats, 26.9%	91 & 46 seats
Seats won	266 (H) 135 (S)	179 (H) 94 (S)	61 (H) 33 (S)
Seat change	0	5	43
Popular vote	12,919,270	9,072,454	3,210,427
Percentage	38.7%	27.1%	10.0%
Swing	0.4%	0.3%	4.5%

Legislative election results map. Light Blue denotes provinces with a Christian Democratic plurality, Red denotes those with a Communist plurality, Gray denotes those with an Autonomist plurality.

Prime Minister before election

Giulio Andreotti
Christian Democracy

Elected Prime Minister

Giulio Andreotti
Christian Democracy

General elections were held in Italy on May 7, 1972.Democrazia Cristiana (DC) remained stable with around 38% of the votes, as it happened to the Communist Party (PCI) which obtained the same 27% of 1968. The Socialist Party (PSI) continued in its decline, reducing to less than 10%. The most important growth was that of the post-fascist Italian Social Movement, who nearly doubled its votes from 4.5 to c. 9%, after that its leader Giorgio Almirante launched the formula of the National Right, proposing his party as the sole group of the Italian right side. After the dismaying result, less than 2%, against 4.5% of 1968, the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity was disbanded, its majority joining the Italian Communist Party.

The pure party-list proportional representation had traditionally become the electoral system for the Chamber of Deputies. Italian provinces were united in 32 constituencies, each electing a group of candidates. At constituency level, seats were divided between open lists using the largest remainder method with Imperiali quota. Remaining votes and seats were transferred at national level, where they were divided using the Hare quota, and automatically distributed to best losers into the local lists.

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