1979 European Parliament election in Italy
European Parliament elections were held in Italy on 10 June 1979. They were held a week after general election and the failure to hold the two elections together caused much controversy for wasting public money.
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All 81 Italian seats in the European Parliament | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 European election results map. Red denotes those with a Communist plurality, White denotes provinces with a Christian Democratic plurality, Gray denotes those with an Autonomist plurality. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Electoral system
The pure party-list proportional representation was the traditional electoral system of the Italian Republic since its foundation in 1946, so it was naturally adopted to elect the Italian representatives to the European Parliament. Two levels were used: a national level to divide seats between parties, and a constituency level to distribute them between candidates. Italian regions were united in 5 constituencies, each electing a group of deputies. At national level, seats were divided between party lists using the largest remainder method with Hare quota. All seats gained by each party were automatically distributed to their local open lists and their most voted candidates.
Results
This election taking place just a week after the general election, it obviously gave a similar result. However, the minor importance of the European ballot caused a lower turnout, which particularly punished the two major parties, the Christian Democracy and the Italian Communist Party. The small Italian Liberal Party had a breath of fresh air from this vote, doubling its percentage compared to seven days before.
| Party | Votes | % | Seats | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christian Democracy | 12,774,320 | 36.45 | 29 | |
| Italian Communist Party | 10,361,344 | 29.57 | 24 | |
| Italian Socialist Party | 3,866,946 | 11.03 | 9 | |
| Italian Social Movement | 1,909,055 | 5.45 | 4 | |
| Italian Democratic Socialist Party | 1,514,272 | 4.32 | 4 | |
| Radical Party | 1,285,065 | 3.67 | 3 | |
| Italian Liberal Party | 1,271,159 | 3.63 | 3 | |
| Italian Republican Party | 896,139 | 2.56 | 2 | |
| Proletarian Unity Party | 406,656 | 1.16 | 1 | |
| Proletarian Democracy | 252,342 | 0.72 | 1 | |
| South Tyrolean People's Party | 196,373 | 0.56 | 1 | |
| Federalism (Valdostan Union and others) | 166,393 | 0.47 | 0 | |
| National Democracy | 142,537 | 0.41 | 0 | |
| Total | 35,042,601 | 100.00 | 81 | |
| Valid votes | 35,042,601 | 96.94 | ||
| Invalid/blank votes | 1,105,579 | 3.06 | ||
| Total votes | 36,148,180 | 100.00 | ||
| Registered voters/turnout | 42,203,405 | 85.65 | ||
| Source: Italian Ministry of the Interior | ||||
External links
| General | |
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| European | |
| Regional | |
| Local |
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| Referendums | |
| By-elections | |