Primary elections in Italy
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The mechanism of primary elections was used for the first time in Italy by Lega Nord in 1995[1], but was scarcely used until before the 2005 regional elections, for which the centre-left The Union coalition delegated its potential electors to select candidates for office as President of the Regions of Apulia and Calabria. Another kind of primary election was held at the same time by the Democrats of the Left for deciding instead which candidates to present for the Regional Council of Tuscany.
A more politically significant primary election was held on 16 October 2005, when The Union asked its electors to decide the candidate as Prime Minister for the next general election to be held next year. After the great success of this 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. Two years later, in October 14 2007, the potential electors of the Democratic Party were called to choose the party leader among a list of six, their representatives to the Constituent Assembly and the local reps. The primary elections was a success, involving more than 3,000,000 people across Italy, and gave to the winner Walter Veltroni momentum in a difficult period for the governement and the centre-left coalition. The voters were symbolically asked to give 1€ contribution for the organisation. It showed up to be the biggest open primary held to select a major party leader in Europe, and it attracted big curiosity from abroad.
The centre-right House of Freedoms has never held a primary election to decide its candidates in the national stage and held some experiments only at the very local level.
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[edit] Legislative rules
There are no laws at the national level to govern the conduct of any primary election. The Union itself determines the functioning of 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 do not consider the primary election in 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] 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 | Members 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 |
| October 14, 2007 | Democratic Party | Open primary | Party leader | Walter Veltroni |
| October 14, 2007 | Democratic Party | Open primary | Party regional leaders | several winners |
| October 14, 2007 | Democratic Party | Open primary | Members of the Constituent Assembly | several winners |
