General elections were held in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

on 26 October 1913, with a second round of voting on 2 November.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1047 The Liberals (the former ''Ministeriali'') narrowly retained an absolute majority in the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...

, while the Radical Party emerged as the largest opposition bloc. Both groupings did particularly well in

Southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...

, while the

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Social democracy, social democratic and Democratic socialism, democratic socialist political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parti ...

gained eight seats and was the largest party in

Emilia-Romagna Emilia-Romagna (, , both , ; or ; ) is an Regions of Italy, administrative region of northern Italy, comprising the historical regions of Emilia (region), Emilia and Romagna. Its capital is Bologna. It has an area of , and a population of 4.4 m ...

.Piergiorgio Corbetta; Maria Serena Piretti, ''Atlante storico-elettorale d'Italia'', Zanichelli,

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

2009 However, the election marked the beginning of the decline of Liberal establishment. There were episodes of violence during the election.

Background

The two historical parliamentary factions, the liberal and progressive

Left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relativ ...

and the conservative and monarchist

Right Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of freedom or Entitlement (fair division), entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal sy ...

, formed a single liberal and centrist group, known as Liberals, under the leadership of

Giovanni Giolitti Giovanni Giolitti (; 27 October 1842 – 17 July 1928) was an Italian statesman. He was the prime minister of Italy five times between 1892 and 1921. He is the longest-serving democratically elected prime minister in Italian history, and the sec ...

. This phenomenon, known in Italian as '' Trasformismo'' (roughly translatable in English as "transformism"—in a satirical newspaper, the PM was depicted as a

chameleon Chameleons or chamaeleons (Family (biology), family Chamaeleonidae) are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of Old World lizards with 200 species described as of June 2015. The members of this Family (biology), family are best known for ...

), effectively removed political differences in

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

, which was dominated by an undistinguished liberal bloc with a landslide majority until after

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. Two parliamentary factions alternated in government, one led by

Sidney Sonnino Sidney Costantino, Baron Sonnino (; 11 March 1847 – 24 November 1922) was an Italian statesman, 19th prime minister of Italy and twice served briefly as one, in 1906 and again from 1909 to 1910. In 1901, he founded a new major newspaper, '' Il ...

and the other, by far the larger of the two, by Giolitti. At that time the Liberals governed in alliance with the Radicals, the Democrats and, eventually, the Reform Socialists.Italian Liberal Party
, Britannica Concise This alliance governed against two smaller opposition: The Clericals, composed by some

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-oriented politicians, The Extreme, formed by the

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

faction which represented a real

left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relativ ...

in a present-day concept.

Electoral reform

Changes made in 1912 widened the voting franchise to include literate men aged 21, men who had served in the army or navy (regardless of whether they were 21 years old), and illiterate men over the age of 30.Nohlen & Stöver, p1031 This raised the number of eligible voters from 2,930,473 in 1909 to 8,443,205.Nohlen & Stöver, p1050 The electoral system remained single-member constituencies with two-round majority voting.

Parties and leaders

Results

Leading party by region

References

{{Italian elections General elections in Italy

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...