Primary elections in Italy

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The mechanism of primary elections was quite unseen in Italy before the 2005 regional elections, for which the left-wing alliance The Union delegate its potential electors to decide about the candidates as President of the Regions of Apulia and Calabria. Another kind of primary election was contemporarily held by the Democrats of the Left (that is, the biggest and most popular party of the left-wing alliance) for deciding instead which candidates to present for the Regional Council of Tuscany.

But, by far, the most important and successful primary election was held on October 16, 2005, when the Union asked its electors to decide the candidate as Prime Minister for the next general election to be held next year.

The right-wing House of Freedoms has never held a primary election to decide its candidates.

1 Legislative rules
2 Future of primary elections
3 List of most relevant primary elections in Italy
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Legislative rules

There are no laws at the national level for ruling any primary election. Actually, the Union has always decided itself the main rules for its primaries; the October national primary and the Apulia one have been ruled in an open form, with any potential elector allowed to vote, whereas the Calabria one was in form of political convention. For this reason, people in Italy usually does not consider the primary election Calabria as a "real primary", and thus define the Apulia one as the first primary election ever held in the country.

For the October national primary election, the Union allowed even official immigrants with at least 3 years of stay in the country to participate the voting, as well as Italian citizens abroad.

On December 17, 2004, the Tuscany region approved a law (known as legge 70) which formally allows the parties to hold primary elections for deciding their candidates, proposing also a common regulation for how to manage them. As of today, the Democrats of the Left represents the only party which resorted these laws, on the occasion of the regional election of April 2005. The Tuscany region is the only one to have made up a kind of regulation for primary elections in Italy.

[edit] Future of primary elections

About the Union, after the great success of its national primary election of October, with over 4,300,000 voters, it is likely to imagine a larger use of this mechanism by the coalition for deciding its own candidates, even for the lowest political levels. In December 4, 2005, another primary election has been held in Sicily and won by Rita Borsellino, sister of Paolo and popular anti-mafia activist. Another primary election has been held in January 29, 2006, for nominating the next centre-left candidate as mayor of Milan, won by former city prefect Bruno Ferrante, with Nobel prize winner Dario Fo ended second with over 20% of votes.

On the House of Freedoms, adoption of the primary elections' method for choosing candidates was asked by the Democrats' Centre Union, especially for the candidate as Prime Minister to present for the next general election. But, after some discussion inside the coalition, the proposal, came out from (former) party's leader Marco Follini, rapidly fell down.

[edit] List of most relevant primary elections in Italy

Primary date(s)	Party/Coalition	Type of primary	Position(s)	Winner
November 28, 2004	The Union	Convention	President of Calabria Region	Agazio Loiero
January 16, 2005	The Union	Open primary	President of Apulia Region	Nichi Vendola
February 20, 2005	Democrats of the Left	Open primary	Member of the Regional Council of Tuscany	several winners
October 16, 2005	The Union	Open primary	Prime Minister of Italy (link)	Romano Prodi
December 4, 2005	The Union	Open primary	President of Sicily Region (link)	Rita Borsellino
January 29, 2006	The Union	Open primary	Mayor of Milan (link)	Bruno Ferrante
February 4, 2007	The Union	Open primary	Mayor of Genoa	Marta Vincenzi
February 4, 2007	The Union	Open primary	Mayor of Palermo	Leoluca Orlando