The 2018 Italian general election was held on 4 March 2018 after the Italian Parliament was dissolved by President Sergio Mattarella on 28 December 2017. Voters were electing the 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the 315 elective members of the Senate of the Republic for the 18th legislature of the Italian Republic since 1948. The election took place concurrently with the Lombard and Lazio regional elections. No party or coalition gained an absolute majority in the parliament, even though the centre-right coalition won a plurality of seats as a coalition, and the Five Star Movement (M5S) won a plurality of seats as an individual party.
The centre-right coalition, whose main party was the right-wing League led by Matteo Salvini, emerged with a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate, while the anti-establishment M5S led by Luigi Di Maio became the party with the largest number of votes. The centre-left coalition, led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of the governing Democratic Party (PD), came third; however, no political group or party won an outright majority, resulting in a hung parliament.
The 2018 Italian government formation lasted three months and the first Conte government was formed on 1 June between the M5S and the League, whose leaders both became deputy prime ministers in a populist coalition government led by the M5S-linked independent Giuseppe Conte as Prime Minister of Italy. The 2019 Italian government crisis started when the League withdrew its support of the government and the coalition ended with Conte's resignation on 20 August. A new M5S-led coalition was formed with the centre-left PD and the Free and Equal left-wing parliamentary group, with Conte at its head, on 5 September 2019. Amid the 2021 Italian government crisis, the second Conte government was replaced by a national unity government headed by Mario Draghi.
Background In the 2013 Italian general election held in March, none of the three main alliances (the centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, the centre-left coalition led by Pier Luigi Bersani, and the anti-establishment, populist Five Star Movement (M5S) led by Beppe Grillo) won an outright majority in the Italian Parliament. After a failed attempt to form a government by Bersani, then-secretary of the Democratic Party (PD), and Giorgio Napolitano's reluctantly-accepted second term as President of Italy in the 2013 Italian presidential election held in April, Enrico Letta, Bersani's deputy, received the task of forming a grand coalition government. The Letta Cabinet consisted of the PD, Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PdL), Civic Choice (SC), the Union of the Centre (UDC), and the Italian Radicals (RI).
On 16 November 2013, Berlusconi re-launched Forza Italia (FI), named like the previous Forza Italia party (1994–2009). Additionally, Berlusconi announced that FI would be opposed to Letta's government, causing the split from the PdL/FI of a large group of deputies and senators led by Minister of Interior Angelino Alfano, who launched the alternative New Centre-Right (NCD) party and remained loyal to the government, which also came to include the Populars for Italy (PpI).
Following the election of Matteo Renzi as secretary of the PD in December 2013, there were persistent tensions culminating in Letta's resignation as Prime Minister in February 2014. The Renzi Cabinet was based on the same coalition, including the NCD, but in a new fashion. The new Prime Minister had a strong mandate from the PD, which was reinforced in May by the party's strong showing in the 2014 European Parliament election in Italy; the 2015 Italian presidential election resulted in the election of Sergio Mattarella, a former PD member, as the president of Italy in January. While in power, Renzi implemented several reforms, including the Italian electoral law of 2015 (Italicum) that would be declared partially unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Italy in January 2017 and replaced by the Italian electoral law of 2017 (Rosatellum), and a relaxation of labour and employment laws known as the Jobs Act with the intention of boosting economic growth that would also found by the same court to be partially unconstitutional in September 2018, which was upheld in July 2020, plus a thorough reform of the public administration, the simplification of the civil trial, the recognition of same-sex unions (not marriages), and the abolition of several minor taxes.
As a result of the Libyan Civil War, a major problem faced by Renzi was the high level of illegal immigration to Italy. During his tenure, there was an increase in the number of immigrants rescued at sea being brought to southern Italian ports, prompting criticism from the M5S, FI, and the Northern League, and causing a loss of popularity for Renzi. Into 2016, opinion polls registered the PD's strength, the growth of the M5S, the Northern League, and Brothers of Italy (FdI), FI's decline, SC's disappearance, and the replacement of Left Ecology Freedom (SEL) with Italian Left (SI).
In the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum, a constitutional reform proposed by Renzi's government and duly approved by Parliament was rejected 59% to 41%. Under the reform, the Senate would have been composed of 100 members, of which 95 are regional representatives and five are presidential appointees. Following defeat in December 2016, Renzi stepped down as Prime Minister and was replaced by Minister of Foreign Affairs Paolo Gentiloni, another PD member and deputy.
In early 2017, in opposition to Renzi's policies, some left-wing PD members led by Bersani, Massimo D'Alema, and Roberto Speranza launched, along with SI splinters, the Democratic and Progressive Movement (MDP). Contextually, the NCD was transformed into Popular Alternative (AP). In April, Renzi was re-elected secretary of the PD and became the party's candidate for Prime Minister, defeating Minister of Justice Andrea Orlando and the governor of Apulia Michele Emiliano.
In May 2017, Matteo Salvini was re-elected federal secretary of the Northern League and launched his own bid. Under Salvini, the party had emphasised Euroscepticism, opposition to immigration, and other right-wing populist policies. His aim had been to re-launch it as a nationalist party, withering any notion of northern separatism. This focus became particularly evident in December 2017, when the party presented its new electoral logo dropping Nord ("Northern"). That same month, the League for Salvini Premier was founded as a sister party to promote Salvini's candidature as Prime Minister. Political commentators have since described it as a parallel party of the League, with the aim of politically replacing the latter, which had been burdened by a statutory debt of €49 million.
In September 2017, Luigi Di Maio was selected as candidate for Prime Minister and political head of the M5S, replacing Grillo; in the following months, Grillo was accused by critics of continuing to play his role as de facto leader of the party, while an increasingly important, albeit unofficial, role was assumed by Davide Casaleggio, son of Gianroberto, a web strategist who founded the M5S along with Grillo in 2009 and died in 2016. In January 2018, Grillo separated his own blog from the movement; his blog was used in the previous years as an online newspaper of the M5S and the main propaganda tool. This event was seen by many as the proof that Grillo was slowly leaving politics.
The autumn registered some major developments to the left of the political spectrum. In November, the RI, Forza Europa, and individual liberals launched a joint list named More Europe (+E), led by the long-time RI leader Emma Bonino. In December, the MDP, SI, and Possible launched a joint list named Free and Equal (LeU) under the leadership of Pietro Grasso, the president of the Senate and former anti-mafia prosecutor. That same month, the Italian Socialist Party, the Federation of the Greens, Civic Area, and Progressive Area formed a list named Together in support of the PD, and the Communist Refoundation Party, the Italian Communist Party, social centres, minor parties, local committees, associations, and groups launched a far-left joint list named Power to the People (PaP) under the leadership of Viola Carofalo.
In late December 2017, the centrist post-NCD Popular Alternative (AP), which had been a key coalition partner for the PD, divided itself among those who wanted to return into the centre-right's fold and those who supported Renzi's coalition. Two groups of AP splinters (one led by Maurizio Lupi and the other by Enrico Costa) formed, along with Direction Italy, Civic Choice, Act!, Cantiere Popolare, and the Movement for Autonomies, a joint list within the centre-right named Us with Italy (NcI). The list was later enlarged to the Union of the Centre and other minor parties. The remaining members of the AP, Italy of Values, Centrists for Europe, Solidary Democracy, and minor groups joined forces in the pro-PD Popular Civic List (CP) led by Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin.
On 28 December 2017, President Mattarella dissolved the parliament and a new general election was called for 4 March 2018.
On 21 February 2018, Marco Minniti, the Italian Minister of the Interior, warned: "There is a concrete risk of the mafias conditioning electors' free vote." The Sicilian Mafia have been active in Italian election meddling; the Camorra and 'Ndrangheta organisations have also taken an interest.
In late February 2018, Berlusconi indicated Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, as his candidate for the premiership if the centre-right coalition won the general election, and if FI achieved a plurality of the votes inside the coalition, condition that did not occur, resulting in a victory of the League, the party led by Salvini.
Campaign The first phase of the electoral campaign was marked by the statement of President Mattarella to parties for the presentation of "realistic and concrete" proposals during the traditional end of the year's message, in which he also expressed the wish for a high participation in the ballot.
Electoral programmes The electoral programme of the PD included, among the main points, the introduction of a minimum hourly wage of €10, a measure that would affect 15% of workers, that is those workers who do not adhere to the national collective agreements, plus a cut of the contributory wedge for permanent contracts, a relocation allowance and an increase in subsidies for the unemployed, a monthly allowance of €80 for parents for each minor child, fiscal detraction of €240 for parents with children, and the progressive reduction of the rates of IRPEF and IRES, respectively the income tax and the corporate tax. Regarding immigration, which had been a major problem in Italy for the previous years, the PD advocated a reduction in migrant flows through bilateral agreements with the countries of origin and pretended to a halt to European Union funding for countries like Hungary and Poland that have refused to take in any of the 600,000 migrants who have reached Italy through the Mediterranean over the past four years. Among the PD's allies, the CP proposed free nursery schools, a tax exemption for corporate welfare, and other measures regarding public health, including the contrast to the long waiting list in hospitals, the abolition of the so-called "supertickets", and an extension of home care for the elderly. +E advocated the re-launch of the process of European integration and federalisation of the European Union towards the formation of the United States of Europe. This was also supported by the PD, with the PD's leader Renzi saying the United States of Europe is the future. In opposition to the PD's policies implemented by Minister of Interior Marco Minniti, +E advocated the social integration of migrants.