Italian general election, 1983

Italian general election, 1983

← 1979 26 June 1983 1987 →
All 630 seats in the Italian Chamber of Deputies 316 seats were needed for a majority in the Chamber 315 (of the 322) seats in the Italian Senate
Turnout	88.0%
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Ciriaco De Mita Enrico Berlinguer Bettino Craxi Party Christian Democracy Communist Party Socialist Party Leader since 1982 1972 1976 Leader's seat XXIV - Eastern Campania XX - Latium III - Milan Last election 262 & 138 seats, 38.3% 201 & 109 seats, 30.4% 62 & 32 seats Seats won 225 (H) 120 (S) 198 (H) 107 (S) 73 (H) 38 (S) Seat change 55 5 17 Popular vote 12,153,081 11,032,318 4,223,362 Percentage 32.9% 29.9% 11.4% Swing 5.4% 0.5% 1.5%
Legislative election results map. Light Blue denotes provinces with a Christian Democratic plurality, Red denotes those with a Communist plurality, Gray and Brown denotes those with an Autonomist plurality.
Prime Minister before election Amintore Fanfani Christian Democracy Elected Prime Minister Bettino Craxi Socialist Party

Amintore Fanfani
Christian Democracy

Bettino Craxi
Socialist Party

General elections were held in Italy on 26 June 1983. The Pentaparty formula, the governative alliance between five centrist parties, caused unexpected problems to Christian Democracy. The alliance was fixed and universal, extended both to the national government and to the local administrations. Considering that the election result did not longer depend by the strength of the DC, but by the strength of the entire Pentapartito, centrist electors began to look at the Christian Democratic vote as not necessary to prevent a Communist success. More, voting for one of the four minor parties of the alliance was seen as a form of moderate protest against the government without giving advantages to the PCI. Other minor effects of this election were a reduction of the referendarian Radical Party and the appearance of some regional forces.

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.

For the Senate, 237 single-seat constituencies were established, even if the assembly had risen to 315 members. The candidates needed a landslide victory of two thirds of votes to be elected, a goal which could be reached only by the German minorities in South Tirol. All remained votes and seats were grouped in party lists and regional constituencies, where a D'Hondt method was used: inside the lists, candidates with the best percentages were elected.