The 2006 Italian general election was held on 9 and 10 April 2006. Romano Prodi, leader of the centre-left coalition The Union, narrowly defeated the incumbent Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the centre-right coalition House of Freedoms. Initial exit polls suggested a victory for Prodi, but the results narrowed as the count progressed. On 11 April 2006, Prodi declared victory;Centre-left claims Italy victory, BBC News Berlusconi never conceded defeat and an ensuing dispute formed.
Preliminary results showed The Union leading the House of Freedoms in the Chamber of Deputies, with 340 seats to 277, thanks to obtaining a majority bonus (actual votes were distributed 49.81% to 49.74%). One more seat is allied with The Union (Aosta Valley) and 7 more seats in the foreign constituency. The House of Freedoms had secured a slight majority of Senate seats elected within Italy (155 seats to 154), but The Union won 4 of the 6 seats allocated to voters outside Italy, giving them control of both chambers.
On 19 April 2006, Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation ruled that Prodi had indeed won the election, winning control of the Chamber of Deputies by only 24,755 votes out of more than 38 million votes cast, and winning 158 seats in the Senate to 156 for Berlusconi's coalition. Even so, Berlusconi refused to concede defeat, claiming unproven electoral fraud.
Electoral campaign During the election campaign, a political battle began between Romano Prodi, who led the centre-left coalition The Union and had been President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004 and Prime Minister of Italy from 1996 to 1998. On the other hand, Silvio Berlusconi led the centre-right House of Freedoms; Berlusconi had been the incumbent Prime Minister since the 2001 general election, and had previously served as Prime Minister also in 1994 and 1995.
House of Freedoms The House of Freedoms was the coalition supporting the incumbent government led by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and mainly included the same parties as in the previous general election.
The New Italian Socialist Party (NPSI), a small social-democratic party composed of former members of the late Italian Socialist Party and led by former 1980s and 1990s minister Gianni De Michelis, which was part of the Berlusconi III Cabinet as a minister without portfolio, suffered a split on its last national congress (21 to 23 October 23, 2005), with a left-wing faction, led by Bobo Craxi, son of the late Bettino Craxi, who decided to immediately leave the House of Freedoms and unilaterally elected Craxi himself as new party leader. The NPSI contested the election with a joint list with the Christian Democracy for Autonomies.
As for the candidate who led the coalition into the general election, Berlusconi experienced an actual loss of support from Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC), who asked for a return of the electoral law to a proportional system (which would most likely favour them) and a primary election to formally decide the alliance's candidate for Prime Minister. When the party list representation system was restored (albeit a form very different from the UDC proposal) and Marco Follini, critic of several reforms imposed by Berlusconi on the whole coalition, resigned from the UDC secretaryship, the possibility of a change of leadership inside the House of Freedoms was significantly reduced. On 27 October 2005, Lorenzo Cesa was appointed as new UDC secretary, becoming the successor of Follini himself. The coalition announced a "three-forwards" system, meaning that the Prime Ministerial candidate will be the political leader, among Casini, Fini and Berlusconi, whose party will win most votes. Since Berlusconi's party was known to be by far the largest one, it was understood that Berlusconi was the actual candidate.
One event which caused heavy criticism from the opposition was the support, sought and obtained by Berlusconi, of a number of fascist movements and parties, notably the Social Alternative of Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the former dictator of Italy, and Luca Romagnoli, a holocaust denier. Supporters of Berlusconi responded to this pointing to the presence in The Union of two communist parties, which had among their candidates anarchist activist Francesco Caruso and a transgender person, Vladimir Luxuria.
The Union The Olive Tree coalition, expression of the Italian centre-left, was expanded as The Union, and led for the election by former Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission Romano Prodi, who had already beaten Berlusconi in the 1996 general election. Prodi's candidacy was confirmed by a national primary election, held on 16 October 2005. The former coalition was enlarged in order to cover the whole ensemble of Italian centre-left to left-wing factions.
The Rose in the Fist was officially founded on 25 September 2005, when the Italian Radicals, a libertarian-influenced party, officially declared an alliance with the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI) in the form of a confederation, with explicit references to the politics of Tony Blair, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Loris Fortuna, an Italian politician in the 1970s who became famous for his laicist proposals, and is considered the father of the law on divorce. This confederation immediately caused a stir for not having signed the political platform of The Union, being the only centre-left party not to do that; the Rose in the Fist, represented by Emma Bonino in the final platform meeting, in fact protested about insufficient mentions of social issues such as legalisation of civil unions. The Socialists, led by Bobo Craxi, who were the breakaway left wing of the New Italian Socialist Party which emerged the House of Freedoms, was supposed to join the Rose in the Fist confederation, but instead reorganised itself in a single party, which however failed to get over the 2% of national votes. However, Bobo Craxi was able to enter in the Lower House, as he was one of the leading candidates for The Olive Tree in Lombardy.
The Union is also supported by a number of minor parties and movements, although of those only the Pensioners' Party has any elected representation (1 Member of European Parliament).
Main coalitions and parties CoalitionParty Main ideologySeats Party leaderCoalition leader Total House of Freedoms (FI) Liberal conservatism Silvio BerlusconiSilvio Berlusconi National Alliance (AN) National conservatism Gianfranco Fini Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC) Christian democracy Pier Ferdinando Casini Northern League – Movement for Autonomy (LN–MpA) Regionalism Umberto Bossi Christian Democracy – Socialist Party (DC–PS) Christian democracy, social democracy Gianfranco Rotondi Gianni De Michelis Italian Republican Party (PRI) Liberalism Francesco Nucara Tricolour Flame (FT) Neo-fascism Luca Romagnoli Social Alternative (AS) Neo-fascism Alessandra Mussolini The Union Democrats of the Left (DS) Social democracy Piero FassinoRomano Prodi Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL) Social liberalism, Christian left Francesco Rutelli Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) Communism Fausto Bertinotti Rose in the Fist (RnP) Liberalism, social democracy Emma Bonino Enrico Boselli Union of Democrats for Europe (UDEUR) Christian democracy Clemente Mastella Party of Italian Communists (PdCI) Communism Oliviero Diliberto Federation of the Greens (FdV) Green politics Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP) Regionalism Luis Durnwalder Italy of Values (IdV) Anti-corruption politics Antonio Di Pietro Pensioners' Party (PP) Pensioners' interests Carlo Fatuzzo
Debates For some time, Silvio Berlusconi had challenged Romano Prodi to a debate on national television. Prodi, however, said he would accept only if certain rules had been set. Possibly because he thought he was behind in the polls, Berlusconi saw the debate as a chance to turn the tables, and accused Prodi of fleeing from him. It is notable that, in the 2001 elections, it was Berlusconi who refused to meet the centre-left candidate, Francesco Rutelli.
Two televised debates were set by the Parliamentary Committee of Inspection on RAI, which had the goal of ensuring equal treatment for the two political sides. However, Prodi contested the deliberation of this Committee, which allowed Berlusconi to also hold a final televised speech after the debates as Prime Minister. Prodi refused to participate in any debate until this final speech had been cancelled. The issue was resolved on 3 March, when Berlusconi finally agreed to cancel the final speech.
The debates lasted about 90 minutes each, did not include commercials, and had a preset time for each answer and each reply, and the obligation to film only the speaking person at any given time. The candidates were also forbidden to bring any kind of notes with them, even though they could write some down during the debate, and no audience was allowed to participate. This set of rules was very unusual in Italian political talk shows, where politicians usually interrupt each other, talk simultaneously and for as long as they can hold the word. Questions to candidates are posted by two journalists from the Italian press: the moderator himself was not allowed to ask any questions, but only to present the debate and guarantee respect of the rules. At the end of the debates, the candidates are allowed to make a final statement of 3 minutes.
The first televised debate, held on 14 March, was broadcast live on Rai Uno, and moderated by Clemente Mimun, Director of TG1. It featured questions from journalists Roberto Napoletano of Il Messaggero and Marcello Sorgi of La Stampa. It was watched by over 16 million people, a record for a political TV show. During his final speech, Berlusconi, who often overran his intervention times, attacked the rules of the debate, in his opinion too strict, whereas Prodi praised them, pointing out the fact that they are used in US debates this way, as well. Some observers commented that Berlusconi had been disappointing in this debate, scribbling nervously while he was talking and at a point confusing Iran and Iraq; while all politicians claimed their candidate had won the debate, it was generally agreed that Berlusconi had not dealt a strong blow to Prodi.
The second debate, moderated by Bruno Vespa, an Italian journalist and anchorman, was held on April 3 and broadcast live on Rai Uno, featuring questions from Napoletano and Sorgi (same journalists of the first debate). It was dominated by the economic proposals and was more intense, with much stronger tones between Prodi and Berlusconi. In this debate, Berlusconi had the possibility of making the final 3-minute statement: in this time, he delivered his "surprise blow" proposing the abolition of ICI, a local tax on real estate whose money belongs to local city councils.
Later on, it turned out that Berlusconi's proposal was not completely agreed upon in the rest of the House of Freedoms, and Prodi, immediately after the debate, noted "about ICI, I want to know what the centre-right mayors think about".
Platforms
The Union After a long discussion, the centre-left coalition released its official platform on 10 February 2006, and presented it to the public the next day. However, the Rose in the Fist refused to sign it in, because it did not explicitly include some issues, such as civil unions and LGBT rights. The platform has been criticised by the House of Freedoms because of its 281-page length.
A reduced, more readable, version of the official political platform was released by the coalition, in order to answer the critics from the centre-right coalition.
The main points of the centre-left platform were: More safety, by moving police resources from immigration and escort issues to the control of the territory; Controlled immigration and promotion of legal ways to immigrate in Italy;