1948 Italian presidential election

The 1948 Italian presidential election was held in Italy on 10–11 May 1948. Luigi Einaudi, governor of the Bank of Italy and member of the Liberal Party, was elected as the new President of Italy.

1948 Italian presidential election

← 1947 10–11 May 1948 1955 →

900 voters
(287 Senators, 613 Deputies)
600 (1st–3rd ballots) or 451 (4th ballot onwards) votes needed to win
 
Nominee Luigi Einaudi Vittorio Emanuele Orlando
Party PLI PLI
Electoral vote 518 320
Percentage 57.5% 35.5%

Result on the fourth ballot
(11 May 1948)

  Einaudi 518   Orlando 320   Others 4

  Invalids, blanks, abstentions and absents 58

President before election

Enrico De Nicola
PLI

Elected President

Luigi Einaudi
PLI

Only members of newly elected Parliament were entitled to vote. The 1948 presidential election was the first one voted by a regular Parliament.

Procedure

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In accordance with the new Italian Constitution, the election was held in the form of a secret ballot, with the Senators and the Deputies entitled to vote. The election was held at Montecitorio, home of the Chamber of Deputies, with the capacity of the building expanded for the purpose. The first three ballots required a two-thirds majority of the 900 voters in order to elect a president, or 600 votes. Starting from the fourth ballot, an absolute majority was required for candidates to be elected, or 451 votes.

The election was presided over by the President of the Chamber of Deputies Giovanni Gronchi, who proceeded to the public counting of the votes, and by the President of the Senate Ivanoe Bonomi.

Timeline

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On 8 May 1948, the new Parliament elected on the April election officially sworn in. According to the protocol, the incumbent President Enrico De Nicola resigned in order to allow the first elected Parliament of the Republic to elect a new president.

De Nicola could actually have run for a second term, but his opposition to the centrist politics of the Christian democrat Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi and to the 1947 Treaty of Peace, made him to lose the support of the Christian Democracy party.[1] His candidacy was supported just by the leftist parties, which on the first ballot were able to show De Gapseri how was their strength in the Assembly by voting unanimously for De Nicola and making him the most voted candidate on ballot.

De Gasperi was intentioned to support the candidacy to the presidency of the incumbent Minister of Foreign Affairs, the republican Carlo Sforza. Strongly opposed by the leftist parties for his anticommunism - the Secretary of the Italian Communist Party Palmiro Togliatti once defined him a "servile American marine" - Sforza wasn't able to gain to support of some members of the Christian Democracy group, especially those who were part of the leftist faction of the party led by Giuseppe Dossetti, in that period positioned on more neutralist stances.[2]

On 11 May, after the second ballot in which was clear that Sforza failed to obtain the support of more than 40 Christian democrat representatives (the so-called franchi tiratori, or snipers), De Gasperi decided to withdraw his support to Sforza's candidacy and decided to endorse the governor of Bank of Italy Luigi Einaudi. As a well-known anti-fascist liberal economist with a socialist past and a strong pro-Atlantic faith, Einaudi was well seen by a large number of representatives, including some liberals and social democrats. His candidacy was instead strongly opposed by the monarchists, although Einaudi had endorsed the monarchy during the 1946 institutional referendum campaign.[2]

On the fourth ballot, Einaudi was elected president by a large margin, while the communists and the socialists decided to vote for the liberal senator Vittorio Emanuele Orlando.

As a sign of protest the monarchists representatives did not participate in the vote. During the first ballot, the nobleman and monarchist deputy Giovanni Alliata di Montereale (1921–1994) decided to tear up his ballot paper in front of the President of the Chamber of Deputies as a sign of offense towards the new republican institutions.[3]

Proposed candidates

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Candidate Office(s) held Supporting party Round(s)
  Carlo Sforza (76)
PRI
Minister of Foreign Affairs
(1947–1951)
Other offices
DC
PRI
PLI
PSLI
1st
2nd
  Enrico De Nicola (70)
PLI
President of Italy
(1948)
Other offices
PCI
PSI
1st
2nd
  Luigi Einaudi (74)
PLI
Governor of the Bank of Italy
(1945–1948)
Other offices
DC
PRI
PLI
PSLI
3rd
4th
  Vittorio Emanuele
Orlando
(87)
PLI
Prime Minister of Italy
(1917–1919)
Other offices
PCI
PSI
4th

Results

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Candidate Round
1st 2nd 3rd 4th
Enrico De Nicola 396 336 13
Carlo Sforza 353 405 9
Luigi Einaudi 20 16 462 518
Ivanoe Bonomi 10 1 4
Cipriano Facchinetti 10 3 3
Alessandro Casati 5 5 5
Gaetano Pieraccini 49
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando 7 320
Other candidates 2 6 4
Blank papers 56 40 333 29
Invalid papers 1 3 8
Abstentions 15 9 15 1
Presents 868 867 863 872
Absents 32 33 37 28
Total 900 900 900 900
Elected: Luigi Einaudi (PLI)
Source: Presidency of the Republic

Inauguration

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Luigi Einaudi giving his inaugural address in the Chamber of Deputies on 12 May 1948

On 12 May 1948 Luigi Einaudi officially sworn in as the new President of Italy.

As required by the procedure, after taking the oath in front of the Italian Parliament, Einaudi gave his inaugural address to the nation, speaking in the President of the Chamber of Deputies. His address was fair quite short, lasting just 19 minutes.[4]

A central theme of President Einaudi's inaugural address was a call to restore a true democratic system after more than twenty years of fascist dictatorship. He underlined the importance of two liberal principles enunciated in the new Constitution, freedom and equality: "It [the Constitution] affirms two solemn principles: to preserve in the present social structure only what is the guarantee of the freedom of the human person against the omnipotence of the State and private arrogance; and to guarantee to everyone, whatever the fortuitous cases of birth, the greatest possible equality in the starting points".[4]

President Einaudi contained also several references to the international affiliation of the newborn Italian Republic: "Twenty years of dictatorial rule had proclaimed civil unrest, external war, and such material and moral destruction to the Fatherland that every hope of redemption seemed vain. Instead, after having saved, despite the regional and local differences and painfully mutilated, the indestructible national unity from the Alps to Sicily, we are now tenaciously reconstructing the destroyed material fortunes and we have twice given the world admirable proof of our will to return to free democratic political competitions and our ability to cooperate, equal among equals, in the forums in which we want to rebuild that Europe from which so much light of thought and humanity came into the world".[4]

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Notes

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References

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  1. ^ Bartolotta, Francesco (1971). Parlamenti e governi d'Italia (in Italian). Rome: Vito Bianco Editore. p. 217.
  2. ^ a b Montanelli, Indro; Cervi, Mario (1985). L'Italia della Repubblica (in Italian). Milan: Rizzoli. pp. 242–244. ISBN 8817427241.
  3. ^ "Italian Parliament, 10 May 1948" (PDF).
  4. ^ a b c "Il discorso di insediamento del Presidente Einaudi". presidenti.quirinale.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-03-04.