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1934 Italian general election

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Field	Value
country	Kingdom_of_Italy
type	legislative
previous_election	1929 Italian general election
previous_year	1929
next_election	1946 Italian general election
next_year	1946
seats_for_election	All 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies201 seats needed for a majority
election_date	25 March 1934
image1	Mussolini mezzobusto (cropped).jpg
leader1	Benito Mussolini
party1	PNF
seats1	400
seat_change1
popular_vote1	10,045,477
percentage1	99.85%
swing1	1.55 pp
title	Prime Minister
posttitle	Elected Prime Minister
before_election	Benito Mussolini
after_election	Benito Mussolini
before_party	PNF
after_party	PNF

General elections were held in Italy on 26 March 1934. At the time, the country was a single-party state with the National Fascist Party (PNF) as the only legally permitted party.

Following a parliamentary reform enacted in 1928 by the Chamber of Deputies and Senate, the elections were held in the form of a referendum. The Grand Council of the PNF, now an official state organ, was allowed to compose a single party list to be either approved or rejected by the voters. The list put forward was ultimately approved by 99.84% of voters. The overwhelming majority provoked Benito Mussolini to dub the election the "second referendum of Fascism."

These would be the last elections of any sort held under Fascist rule. In 1939, the Chamber of Deputies was replaced with the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations, whose members were not elected but instead nominated by party organs.

Background

In 1929 a concordat with the Vatican was signed, ending decades of struggle between the Italian state and the Papacy that dated back to the 1870 takeover of the Papal States by the House of Savoy during the unification of Italy. The Lateran treaties, by which the Italian state was at last recognized by the Catholic Church, and the independence of Vatican City was recognized by the Italian state, were so much appreciated by the ecclesiastic hierarchy that Pope Pius XI acclaimed Mussolini as "the Man of Providence".

During 1930s Mussolini also led the armed local fascist militia, the MVSN or "Blackshirts", which terrorized incipient resistances in the cities and provinces and established the OVRA, an institutionalized secret police that carried official state support. In this way he succeeded in keeping power in his own hands and preventing the emergence of any rival.

After Adolf Hitler came into power, threatening Italian interests in Austria and the Danube basin, Mussolini proposed the Four Power Pact with Britain, France and Germany in 1933. When the Austrian 'austro-fascist' Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss with dictatorial power was assassinated on 25 July 1934, by National-Socialist supporters, Mussolini even threatened Germany with war in the event of a German invasion of Austria. Mussolini for a period of time continued strictly opposing any German attempt to obtain Anschluss and promoted the ephemeral Stresa Front against Germany in 1935.

Electoral system

As for the 1929 election, universal male suffrage was restricted only to men who were members of a trade union or an association, to soldiers and to members of the clergy.

The election was a plebiscite; voters could vote "Yes" or "No" to approve or disapprove the list of deputies nominated by the Grand Council of Fascism. The voter was provided with two equal-sized sheets, white outside, inside bearing the words "Do you approve the list of members appointed by the Grand National Council of Fascism?" The "Yes" ballot paper was decorated with the Italian tricolour and a fasces, the "No" paper was plain.

The voter would be presented with both ballot papers, choosing one of the two and discarding the other in the voting booth. He would then fold over his chosen paper and present it to the electoral officials to ensure it was sealed. The process would not be considered free and fair by modern standards.

Theoretically, if the "No" option had won, the election would have been repeated with the admission of other electoral lists.

Results

References

de
Fattorini, Emma. (2011). "Hitler, Mussolini and the Vatican : Pope Pius XI and the speech that was never made". Polity Press.
[http://storia.camera.it/img-repo/ods/2013/06/25/CD1710000016.pdf Testo Unico 2 settembre 1928, n. 1993]
[http://www.sudd.ch/event.php?lang=en&id=it011934 Direct Democracy]

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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