1963 Italian Senate election in Lombardy

Lombardy elected its forth delegation to the Italian Senate on April 28, 1963. This election was a part of national Italian general election of 1963 even if, according to the Italian Constitution, every senatorial challenge in each Region is a single and independent race.

1963 Italian Senate election in Lombardy

← 1958 April 28, 1963 1968 →

All 45 Lombard seats to the Italian Senate
  Majority party Minority party Third party
 
Leader Aldo Moro Palmiro Togliatti Pietro Nenni
Party DC PCI PSI
Last election 44.8%, 16 seats 18.5%, 6 seats 18.5%, 7 seats
Seats won 19 10 8
Seat change Increase3 Increase4 Increase1
Popular vote 1,757,450 910,939 780,648
Percentage 39.9% 20.7% 17.7%
Swing Decrease4.9% Increase2.2% Decrease0.8%

Old local plurality before election

DC

New local plurality

DC

Lombardy obtained twelve more seats to the Senate, following a constitutional reform.

The election was won by the centrist Christian Democracy, as it happened at national level. Eight Lombard provinces gave a majority or at least a plurality to the winning party, while the agricultural Province of Pavia preferred the Italian Communist Party.

Background

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The constitutional reform of 1963 created dozens of new senatorial seats to improve the representation of minor parties, but the proportional voting system did not impose changes into the total number of local constituencies. The result was that Christian Democracy (DC) elected the major part of its nominees even if it was weakened by Amintore Fanfani's program to create a centre-left government with the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). If the DC paid its toll to the centre-right Italian Liberal Party, which obtained great results in the bourgeois centre of Milan, the PSI lost votes to the Italian Communist Party, and later it suffered a crisis losing his leftist wing, including senator Giuseppe Roda, which created the Soviet-aligned Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity.

Electoral system

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The electoral system for the Senate was a strange hybrid which established a form of proportional representation into FPTP-like constituencies. A candidate needed a landslide victory of more than 65% of votes to obtain a direct mandate. All constituencies where this result was not reached entered into an at-large calculation based upon the D'Hondt method to distribute the seats between the parties, and candidates with the best percentages of suffrage inside their party list were elected.

Results

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Party votes votes (%) seats swing
Christian Democracy 1,757,450 39.9 19  3
Italian Communist Party 910,939 20.7 10  4
Italian Socialist Party 780,648 17.7 8  1
Italian Liberal Party 400,831 9.1 4  3
Italian Democratic Socialist Party 300,841 6.8 3  1
Italian Social Movement 181,387 4.1 1 =
Others 75,939 1.7 - =
Total parties 4,408,035 100.0 45  12

Sources: Italian Ministry of the Interior

Constituencies

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Constituency Elected Party Votes % Others
1 Bergamo Cristoforo Pezzini Christian Democracy 55.8%
2 Clusone Giovanni Zonca Christian Democracy 66.8%
3 Treviglio Daniele Turani Christian Democracy 61.2%
4 Brescia Ludovico Montini Christian Democracy 43.4%
5 Breno Enrico Roselli
Alessandro Morino
Christian Democracy
Italian Democratic Socialist Party
56.9%
10.8%
6 Chiari Pietro Cenini Christian Democracy 57.0%
7 Salò Francesco Zane Christian Democracy 49.0%
8 Como Pasquale Valsecchi
Bruno Amoletti
Christian Democracy
Italian Socialist Party
40.3%
20.0%
9 Lecco Pietro Amigoni Christian Democracy 54.8%
10 Cantù Mario Martinelli
Ugo Bonafini
Christian Democracy
Italian Socialist Party
52.4%
19.6%
11 Cremona Arnaldo Bera Italian Communist Party 27.1% Giovanni Lombardi (DC) 38.1%
12 Crema Ennio Zelioli Christian Democracy 51.1%
13 Mantua Ernesto Zanardi
Tullia Romagnoli
Italian Communist Party
Italian Socialist Party
26.5%
21.6%
Leonello Zenti (DC) 36.2%
14 Ostiglia Teodosio Aimoni
Gastone Darè
Italian Communist Party
Italian Socialist Party
34.2%
22.8%
Dante Bettoni (DC) 29.7%
15 Milan 1 Giorgio Bergamasco Italian Liberal Party 29.8%
16 Milan 2 Luigi Grassi
Gastone Nencioni
Italian Liberal Party
Italian Social Movement
27.5%
8.4%
17 Milan 3 Lea Alcidi Boccacci
Italo Viglianesi
Italian Liberal Party
Italian Democratic Socialist Party
21.4%
10.8%
18 Milan 4 Vincenzo Palumbo
Edgardo Lami Starnuti
Italian Liberal Party
Italian Democratic Socialist Party
25.1%
9.8%
19 Milan 5 Ugo Bartesaghi Italian Communist Party 25.7% Pietro Caleffi (PSI) 19.8%
Antonio Coppi (PLI) 13.0%
20 Milan 6 Piero Montagnani
Giuseppe Roda
Italian Communist Party
Italian Socialist Party
29.1%
21.2%
21 Abbiategrasso Emanuele Samek Lodovici
Carlo Arnaudi
Christian Democracy
Italian Socialist Party
40.8%
20.5%
22 Rho Tommaso Ajroldi
Gianfranco Maris
Arialdo Banfi
Christian Democracy
Italian Communist Party
Italian Socialist Party
39.6%
26.2%
20.4%
23 Monza Gianmaria Cornaggia Christian Democracy 42.9%
24 Vimercate Guido Corbellini Christian Democracy 50.1%
25 Lodi Giordano Dell'Amore
Francesco Scotti
Christian Democracy
Italian Communist Party
42.8%
28.1%
26 Pavia Pietro Vergani Italian Communist Party 30.8% Pietro Ferreri (DC) 28.6%
27 Voghera Giorgio Piovano Italian Communist Party 29.6% Giovanni Celasco (DC) 32.5%
28 Vigevano Giovanni Brambilla Italian Communist Party 38.6%
29 Sondrio Athos Valsecchi Christian Democracy 55.9%
30 Varese Noè Pajetta Christian Democracy 39.7%
31 Busto Arsizio Natale Santero
Guido Canziani
Christian Democracy
Italian Socialist Party
43.2%
19.6%
  • Senators with a direct mandate have bold percentages. Please remember that the electoral system was, in the other cases, a form of proportional representation and not a FPTP race: so candidates winning with a simple plurality could have (and usually had) a candidate (usually a Christian democrat) with more votes in their constituency.

Substitutions

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Notes

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