The Politics of

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

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 ...

takes place in a framework of a

semi-presidential A semi-presidential republic, or dual executive republic, is a republic in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of the state. It differs from a parliamen ...

representative democracy Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy or electoral democracy, is a type of democracy where elected delegates represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies func ...

, whereby the President of Regional Government is the

head of government In the Executive (government), executive branch, the head of government is the highest or the second-highest official of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presid ...

, and of a pluriform

multi-party system In political science, a multi-party system is a political system where more than two meaningfully-distinct political parties regularly run for office and win elections. Multi-party systems tend to be more common in countries using proportional ...

Executive power The executive branch is the part of government which executes or enforces the law. Function The scope of executive power varies greatly depending on the political context in which it emerges, and it can change over time in a given country. In ...

is exercised by the Regional Government.

Legislative power A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers o ...

is vested in both the government and the Sicilian Regional Assembly.

History

The oldest organized party of Sicily was the Sicilian Socialist Party, founded out from the ''

Fasci Siciliani The Fasci Siciliani (), short for Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori ('Sicilian Workers Leagues'), were a popular movement of Democracy, democratic and socialist inspiration that arose in Sicily in the years between 1889 and 1894. The Fasci gained ...

'' in 1893, but the region was primarily a stronghold of the liberal establishment (see Historical Right,

Historical Left The Left group (), later called Historical Left () by historians to distinguish it from the left-wing groups of the 20th century, was a liberal and reformist parliamentary group A parliamentary group, parliamentary caucus or political group ...

and Liberals) that governed Italy for decades. However, by the end of the 19th century, Sicily elected several deputies from

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

parties, namely the Radical Party, the

Italian Republican Party The Italian Republican Party (, PRI) is a political party in Italy established in 1895, which makes it the oldest political party still active in the country. The PRI identifies with 19th-century classical radicalism, as well as Mazzinianism, a ...

, 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 ...

and the Italian Reformist Socialist Party.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 After

Italian Fascism Italian fascism (), also called classical fascism and Fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian fascism is associated with a series of political parties le ...

(whose partisan arm, the

National Fascist Party The National Fascist Party (, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian fascism and as a reorganisation of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The party ruled the Kingdom of It ...

was well supported in the region) and the

Allied invasion of Sicily The Allied invasion of Sicily, also known as the Battle of Sicily and Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II in which the Allies of World War II, Allied forces invaded the island of Sicily in July 1943 and took it from the Axis p ...

during the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Sicily increasingly became a stronghold of

Christian Democracy Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well ...

, in opposition to the

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party (, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was established in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Part ...

. Sicilians had also a penchant for conservative/nationalist politics, represented mainly by the

Monarchist National Party The Monarchist National Party (, PNM) was a list of political parties in Italy, political party in Italy founded in 1946. It was a right-wing competitor to Christian Democracy (Italy), Christian Democracy and was especially strong in Southern Ital ...

and the

Italian Social Movement The Italian Social Movement (, MSI) was a neo-fascist political party in Italy. A far-right party, it presented itself until the 1990s as the defender of Italian fascism's legacy, and later moved towards national conservatism. In 1972, the Itali ...

. After the dissolution of these parties, in the early 1990s, the region was long governed by a " center-right coalition", notably including the

Union of Christian and Centre Democrats The Union of the Centre (, UdC), whose complete name is Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (''Unione dei Democratici Cristiani e Democratici di Centro'', UDC), is a Christian-democratic political party in Italy. Lorenzo Cesa is the part ...

, whose regional leader,

Salvatore Cuffaro Salvatore "Totò" Cuffaro (born 21 February 1958) is a former Italian politician and former President of Sicily. He has served an almost 5-year jail sentence for aiding Cosa Nostra.Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; 29 September 193612 June 2023) was an Italian Media proprietor, media tycoon and politician who served as the prime minister of Italy in three governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a mem ...

Forza Italia (FI; ) was a centre-right liberal-conservative political party in Italy, with Christian democratic,Chiara Moroni, , Carocci, Rome 2008 liberalOreste Massari, ''I partiti politici nelle democrazie contempoiranee'', Laterza, Rome-Bari 2004 (esp ...

and the post-fascist National Alliance. Cuffaro's Christian Democrats have since been the main party of government in Sicily as they had been part of both of the administrations of Raffaele Lombardo of the

Movement for the Autonomies Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger c ...

(2008–2012) and that of Rosario Crocetta of the Democratic Party (since 2012). 3

Legislative branch

The Sicilian Regional Assembly is composed of 90 members (or deputies). 80 deputies are elected in provincial constituencies by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

using the

largest remainder method Party-list proportional representation Apportionment methods The quota or divide-and-rank methods make up a category of apportionment rules, i.e. algorithms for allocating seats in a legislative body among multiple groups (e.g. parties or f ...

with a

Droop quota In the study of Electoral system, electoral systems, the Droop quota (sometimes called the Eduard Hagenbach-Bischoff, Hagenbach-Bischoff, Britton, or Newland-Britton quota) is the Infimum, minimum number of votes a party or candidate needs to rece ...

and

open list Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a Political party, party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, in which party lists ...

s, while 10 councillors (elected in a

general ticket The general ticket or party block voting (PBV), is a type of block voting in which voters opt for a party or a team of candidates, and the highest-polling party/team becomes the winner and receives 100% of the seats for this multi-member distric ...

) come from a "regional list", including the President-elect. One seat is reserved for the candidate who comes second. The Assembly is elected for a five-year term, but, if the President suffers a vote of no confidence, resigns or dies, under the ''simul stabunt, simul cadent'' clause introduced in 2001 (literally ''they will stand together or they will fall together''), also the Assembly is dissolved and a snap election is called.

Executive branch

The Regional Cabinet (''Giunta Regionale'') is presided by the President of the Region (''Presidente della Regione''), who is elected for a five-year term, and is currently composed by 11 members: the President and 10 regional assessors (''Assessori'', literally "

aldermen An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking membe ...

"), including a Vice President (''Vice Presidente''). Originally appointed by the Sicilian Regional Assembly, since 2001 ''

de jure In law and government, ''de jure'' (; ; ) describes practices that are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. The phrase is often used in contrast with '' de facto'' ('from fa ...

'', he is elected by popular vote every five years under

universal suffrage Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...

: the candidate who receives a plurality of votes, is elected. His office is connected to the Regional Assembly (''ARS''), which is elected contextually: one fifth of the assembly seats are generally reserved to his supporters, which are wholesale elected concurrently with the President. The Assembly and the President are linked by an alleged relationship of confidence: if the President resigns or he is dismissed by the Assembly, a snap election is called for both the legislative and the executive offices, because in no case the two bodies can be chosen separately. The popular election of the President and the relationship of confidence between him and the legislature, allow to identify the Sicilian model of government as a particular form of

semi-presidential system A semi-presidential republic, or dual executive republic, is a republic in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of the state. It differs from a parliament ...

. The President of Sicily promulgates regional laws and regulations. He can receive special administrative functions by the national government. The President is one of the 90 members of the Regional Assembly and, in this capacity, he can propose new laws. He appoints and dismiss the Regional Cabinet (called ''Giunta Regionale'' in

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

). The Cabinet is composed by regional assessors (''assessori'', literally "

") who can be members of the Council at the same time. Assessors should not be confused with the ministers: according to Italian administrative law, assessors only receive delegations from the President to rule a bureau or an agency, the Region being a single

legal person In law, a legal person is any person or legal entity that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, lawsuit, sue and be sued, ownership, own property, and so on. The reason for the term "''le ...

, not divided in ministries. One assessor can be appointed vice president. The President can also appoint four under-secretaries (''sottosegretari'') to help the President in his functions. The Regional Cabinet prepares the budget, appoints the boards of public regional agencies and companies, manages assets, develops projects of governance, and resorts to the

Constitutional Court of Italy The Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic () is the highest court of Italy in matters of constitutional law. Sometimes, the name ''Consulta'' is used as a metonym for it, because its sessions are held in Palazzo della Consulta in Rome. ...

if it thinks that a national law may violate regional powers. The President and the Cabinet are two different authorities of the Region: in matters within its competence, the Cabinet has the power to vote to give its approval.

List of presidents

The current President of Sicily is Renato Schifani, who is serving for his first term after winning the 2022 regional election.

Local government

Provinces

was divided in nine

provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

, which were a traditional form of local administration in the region.

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 ...

and

Christian-democratic Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well a ...

ideas had an early diffusion in quite all the provinces around

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 ...

. After the

Fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

parenthesis,

parties found their strongholds in central agricultural provinces, especially in the Province of Enna, but they didn't succeed in local elections, while

obtained high scores in others parts of the Region. On 19 March 2013 the Sicilian Regional Assembly decided to turn them into ''Free Associations of Municipalities'' (''Liberi consorzi tra comuni''). Finally, on 30 July 2015 the Regional Assembly approved a law which put into force the Free Associations of Municipalities, regulating their functions and abolishing definitively the nine historical provinces. The same law created the new ''Metropolitan Cities'' of

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

Messina Messina ( , ; ; ; ) is a harbour city and the capital city, capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of 216,918 inhabitants ...

and

Catania Catania (, , , Sicilian and ) is the second-largest municipality on Sicily, after Palermo, both by area and by population. Despite being the second city of the island, Catania is the center of the most densely populated Sicilian conurbation, wh ...

Municipalities

Sicily is also divided in 390 ''

comuni A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the City status in Italy, titl ...

'' (

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

), which have even more history, having been established in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

when they were the main places of government.

Provincial capitals

Others with 50,000+ inhabitants

Parties and elections

Latest regional election

References

External links

Sicilian RegionSicilian Regional AssemblyConstitution of Sicily
{{DEFAULTSORT:Politics of Sicily Sicily