Italian general election, 1948

Italian general election, 1948

1946 ← 18 April 1948 (1948-04-18) → 1953

All 574 seats to the Italian Chamber of Deputies and 237 (of the 343) seats to the Italian Senate Turnout 92.2%   Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Alcide De Gasperi Palmiro Togliatti (PCI) (pictured) Pietro Nenni (PSI) Ivan Matteo Lombardo Party Christian Democracy Popular Democratic Front Socialist Unity Leader since 1944 1938 (Togliatti) 1931 (Nenni) 1948 Leader's seat VIII - Trentin-South Tirol XX - Latium (Togliatti) Whole Italy (Nenni) II - Piedmont Seats won 305 C / 131 S 183 C / 72 S 33 C / 10 S Popular vote 12,740,042 C 10,899,640 S 8,136,637 C 6,969,122 S 1,858,116 C 943,219 S Percentage 48.5% (C) 48.1% (S) 31.0% (C) 30.8% (S) 7.1% (C) 4.6% (S)

Legislative election results map: Light Blue denotes provinces with a Christian Democratic plurality, Red a Frontist plurality, and Gray an Autonomist plurality.

Prime Minister before election Alcide De Gasperi Christian Democracy New Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi Christian Democracy

Alcide De Gasperi
Christian Democracy

Alcide De Gasperi
Christian Democracy

General elections were held in Italy on Sunday 18 April 1948 to elect the First Republican Parliament. They were heavily influenced by the Cold War confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. After the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, the US became alarmed about Soviet intentions and feared that, if the leftist coalition were to win the elections, the communist Left would draw Italy into the Soviet Union's sphere of influence. As the last month of the election campaign began, the magazine Time pronounced the possible leftist victory to be "the brink of catastrophe".

The elections were eventually won with a comfortable margin by the Christian Democracy party (Italian: Democrazia Cristiana, DC) that defeated the left-wing coalition of the Popular Democratic Front (Italian: Fronte Democratico Popolare per la libertà, la pace, il lavoro, FDP) that comprised the Italian Communist Party (Italian: Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) and the Italian Socialist Party (Italian: Partito Socialista Italiano, PSI).

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