1972 Italian Senate election in Lombardy

May 7, 1972

All 45 Lombard seats to the Italian Senate
  Majority party Minority party Third party
 
Leader Arnaldo Forlani Enrico Berlinguer Francesco De Martino
Party DC PCI PSI
Last election 42.2%, 20 seats 26.3%, 12 seats 13.3%, 6 seats
as ¾ of the PSU
Seats won 20 12 6
Seat change = = =
Popular vote 2,072,472 1,219,259 644,694
Percentage 41.7% 24.5% 13.0%
Swing Decrease0.5% Decrease1.8% Decrease0.3%

Old local plurality before election

DC

New local plurality

DC

Lombardy elected its sixth delegation to the Italian Senate on May 19, 1972. This election was a part of national Italian general election of 1972 even if, according to the Italian Constitution, every senatorial challenge in each Region is a single and independent race.

The election was won by the centrist Christian Democracy, as it happened at national level. Seven Lombard provinces gave a majority or at least a plurality to the winning party, while the agricultural Province of Pavia and Province of Mantua preferred the Italian Communist Party.

Background

This election was quite a copy of the previous one. The Italian Liberal Party was the sole loser, to its left to the Italian Republican Party and to its right to the Italian Social Movement.

Electoral system

The electoral system for the 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 swing
Christian Democracy 2,072,474 41.7 20 =
Italian Communist Party & PSIUP 1,219,259 24.5 12 =
Italian Socialist Party 644,694 13.0 6 =
Italian Social Movement 303,850 6.1 2 Increase1
Italian Liberal Party 279,887 5.6 2 Decrease2
Italian Democratic Socialist Party 265,518 5.3 2 =
Italian Republican Party 157,535 3.2 1 Increase1
Others 27,876 0.6 - =
Total parties 4,970,693 100.0 45 -

Sources: Italian Ministry of the Interior

Constituencies

Constituency Elected Party Votes % Others
1 Bergamo Gianbattista Scaglia Christian Democracy 59.6%
2 Clusone Giuseppe Belotti Christian Democracy 66.6%
3 Treviglio Nullo Biaggi Christian Democracy 60.8%
4 Brescia Mino Martinazzoli Christian Democracy 44.9%
5 Breno Giacomo Mazzoli Christian Democracy 58.1%
6 Chiari Faustino Zugno Christian Democracy 58.0%
7 Salò Fabiano De Zan
Egidio Ariosto
Christian Democracy
Italian Democratic Socialist Party
49.1%
8.3%
8 Como Ubaldo De Ponti
Virginio Bertinelli
Christian Democracy
Italian Democratic Socialist Party
44.0%
9.2%
9 Lecco Tommaso Morlino Christian Democracy 52.7%
10 Cantù Mario Martinelli Christian Democracy 51.7% Carlo Porro (PSDI) 7.2%
11 Cremona Vincenzo Vernaschi
Giuseppe Garoli
Giuseppe Grossi
Christian Democracy
Italian Communist Party
Italian Socialist Party
39.9%
32.0%
15.4%
12 Crema Narciso Patrini Christian Democracy 51.2%
13 Mantua Tullia Romagnoli Italian Communist Party (Gsi) 31.9% Leonello Zenti (DC) 35.7%
14 Ostiglia Agostino Zavattini
Renato Colombo
Italian Communist Party
Italian Socialist Party
39.3%
16.7%
15 Milan 1 Giorgio Bergamasco
Giovanni Nencioni
Giovanni Spadolini
Italian Liberal Party
Italian Social Movement
Italian Republican Party
16.1%
14.8%
9.0%
16 Milan 2 Arturo Robba Italian Liberal Party 14.1%
17 Milan 3 Giorgio Pisanò Italian Social Movement 11.9%
18 Milan 4 None elected
19 Milan 5 Mario Venanzi Italian Communist Party 27.2%
20 Milan 6 Lelio Basso Italian Communist Party (Gsi) 29.5%
21 Abbiategrasso Luigi Noè
Ada Valeria Ruhl
Agostino Viviani
Christian Democracy
Italian Communist Party
Italian Socialist Party
40.2%
29.9%
16.9%
22 Rho Ettore Calvi
Modesto Merzario
Christian Democracy
Italian Communist Party (PSIUP)
37.7%
31.5%
23 Monza Vittorio Pozzar Christian Democracy 41.8%
24 Vimercate Giovanni Marcora
Guido Venegoni
Christian Democracy
Italian Communist Party
45.8%
25.8%
25 Lodi Camillo Ripamonti
Rodolfo Bollini
Christian Democracy
Italian Communist Party
41.6%
33.3%
26 Pavia Renato Cebrelli Italian Communist Party 34.2%
27 Voghera Giorgio Piovano Italian Communist Party 31.7%
28 Vigevano Armando Cossutta Italian Communist Party 42.3%
29 Sondrio Athos Valsecchi
Edoardo Catellani
Christian Democracy
Italian Socialist Party
53.0%
18.6%
30 Varese Pio Alessandrini
Paolo Cavezzali
Christian Democracy
Italian Socialist Party
41.7%
15.5%
31 Busto Arsizio Pierino Azimonti
Michele Zuccalà
Christian Democracy
Italian Socialist Party
43.8%
15.4%
  • 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 (usually a Christian democrat) with more votes in their constituency.

Substitutions

  • Carlo Porro for Cantù (7.2%) replaced Virginio Bertinelli in 1973. Reason: death.
  • Leonello Zenti for Mantua (35.7%) replaced Faustino Zugno in 1975. Reason: death.

Notes

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