1948 Italian Senate election in Lombardy

Lombardy elected its first delegation to the Italian Senate on April 18, 1948. This election was a part of national Italian general election of 1948 even if, according to the newly established Italian Constitution, every senatorial challenge in each Region is a single and independent race.

Italian Senate election in Lombardy, 1948

April 18, 1948

All 31 Lombard seats to the Italian Senate
  First party Second party
 
Leader Alcide De Gasperi Palmiro Togliatti
Party Christian Democracy Popular Democratic Front
Seats won 18 10
Popular vote 1,854,032 1,164,769
Percentage 53.8% 33.8%

The election was won by the centrist Christian Democracy, as it happened at national level. Pavia and Mantua were the sole provinces to oppose this result, giving a plurality to the Social-Communist alliance.

Background

Alcide De Gasperi's Christian Democracy had obtained very good results during quite all municipal elections in Lombardy in 1946. However, their Soviet-aligned opponents looked at this region as one of their possible zones of success, considering the local strength of the Socialist Party before the Fascist era.

Even if the Front obtained some seats in the agricultural south, De Gasperi obtained an absolute majority at regional level, with some exceptional peaks in the alpine north: Lombardy became the region with the highest number of constituencies where the landslide clausola[1] was satisfied. The centre-left alliance between the Italian Democratic Socialist Party and the Italian Republican Party obtained some seats in Milan, a city led by Democratic Socialist mayor Antonio Greppi.

Electoral system

The electoral system introduced in 1948 for the newly elected Senate was a strange hybrid which established a form of proportional representation into FPTP-like constituencies. A candidate needed a landslide victory of more than 65% of votes to obtain a direct mandate. All constituencies where this result was not reached entered into an at-large calculation based upon the D'Hondt method to distribute the seats between the parties, and candidates with the best percentages of suffrages inside their party list were elected.

Results

 
Party votes votes (%) seats
Christian Democracy 1,854,032 53.8 18
Popular Democratic Front 1,164,769 33.8 10
Socialist Unity+Italian Republican Party 364,642 10.8 3
Others 64,284 1.9 -
Total parties 3,447,727 100.0 31

Sources: Italian Ministry of the Interior

Constituencies

 
Constituency Elected Party Votes % Others
1 Bergamo Cristoforo Pezzini Christian Democracy 73.5%
2 Clusone Pietro Bellora Christian Democracy 81.0%
3 Treviglio Piero Mentasti Christian Democracy 72.7%
4 Brescia Angelo Buizza Christian Democracy 55.8%
5 Breno Angelo Cemmi Christian Democracy 68.6%
6 Chiari Albino Donati Christian Democracy 65.7%
7 Salò Francesco Zane Christian Democracy 64.2%
8 Como Mariano Rosati Christian Democracy 60.1%
9 Lecco Enrico Falck Christian Democracy 55.8%
10 Cantù Lorenzo Spallino Christian Democracy 60.3%
11 Cremona Gaetano Ferragni Popular Democratic Front (PSI) 48.3%
12 Crema Ennio Zelioli Christian Democracy 52.3%
13 Mantua Pietro Torelli Popular Democratic Front (PSI) 44.0%
14 Ostiglia Clarenzo Menotti Popular Democratic Front (PCI) 56.8%
15 Milan 1 Merzagora's 2nd election 57.9% seat ceded to Samek Lodovici
16 Milan 2 Gianbattista Boeri Socialist Unity+Republican Party (PRI) 21.0% Edoardo Origlia (DC) 54.5%
17 Milan 3 Enrico Gonzales Socialist Unity+Republican Party (PSDI) 19.5%
18 Milan 4 Giulio Bergmann Socialist Unity+Republican Party (PRI) 20.0%
19 Milan 5 Piero Montagnani Popular Democratic Front (PCI) 42.7%
20 Milan 6 Francesco Mariani Popular Democratic Front (PSI) 51.8%
21 Abbiategrasso E.Samek Lodovici
Antonio Banfi
Christian Democracy
Popular Democratic Front (PCI)
51.4%
40.6%
22 Rho Carlo Perini Christian Democracy 53.6% Amilcare Locatelli (PSI) 36.2%
23 Monza Mario Longoni Christian Democracy 54.0%
24 Vimercate Cesare Merzagora Christian Democracy (Indep.) 60.2%
25 Lodi Giuseppe Alberganti Popular Democratic Front (PCI) 43.6% Gianmaria Cornaggia (DC) 47.7%
26 Pavia Italo Sinforiani Popular Democratic Front (Gds) 43.0%
27 Voghera Cesare Gavina Popular Democratic Front (PCI) 38.7%
28 Vigevano Giuseppe Cortese Popular Democratic Front (PSI) 50.7%
29 Sondrio Ezio Vanoni Christian Democracy 67.1%
30 Varese Antonio Bareggi Christian Democracy 55.7%
31 Busto Arsizio Natale Santero Christian Democracy 53.8%
  • Senators with a direct mandate have bold percentages. Please remember that the electoral system was, in the other cases, a form of proportional representation and not a FPTP race: so candidates winning with a simple plurality could have (and usually had) a candidate (always a Christian democrat) with more votes in their constituency.

Substitutions

  • Amilcare Locatelli for Rho (36.2%) replaced Pietro Torelli in 1948. Reason: death.
  • Edoardo Origlia for Milan 2 (54.5%) replaced Antonio Bareggi in 1950. Reason: death.
  • Gianmaria Cornaggia for Lodi (47.7%) replaced Carlo Perini in 1952. Reason: death.

Notes

  1. Italian Ministry of Interior
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