2001 Italian Senate election in Lombardy

2001 Italian Senate election in Lombardy

← 1996 May 13, 2001 2006 →
All 47 Lombard seats in the Italian Senate
Majority party Minority party   Leader Silvio Berlusconi Francesco Rutelli Party Forza Italia The Daisy Alliance House of Freedoms The Olive Tree Last election 27 seats, 57.2% as PPL and LN 19 seats, 34.2% Seats won 33 11 Seat change +6 -7 Popular vote 2,557,622 1,924,113 Percentage 44.8% 33.7% Swing -12.4% -0.5%
Majority before election House of Freedoms New Majority House of Freedoms

Lombardy renewed its delegation to the Italian Senate on May 13, 2001. This election was a part of national Italian general election of 2001 even if, according to the Italian Constitution, every senatorial challenge in each Region is a single and independent race.

The election was won by the centre-right coalition called House of Freedoms, as it happened at the national level. The House was a new alliance formed for Lombard regional election of 2000 between political giants Pole of Freedoms and Lega Nord. All provinces gave a majority or a plurality to the new Prime Minister of Italy.

Silvio Berlusconi was the largely predicted winner of this election. He had a complete victory during the 1999 European election and, more, he strengthened his position with the alliance between his Pole of Freedoms and his former rivals of Umberto Bossi's Lega Nord, forming the House of Freedoms for the 2000 regional election which gave him a landslide victory. In this context, the majoritarian system was ensuring him a literal triumph in Lombardy.

On the other side, The Olive Tree was coming from five years of troubled government, with three different Prime Ministers, and divisions between member parties obliged to give a nomination to a fourth man, Francesco Rutelli.

The intricate electoral system introduced in 1993, called Mattarella Law, provided 75% of the seats in the Senate as elected by first-past-the-post system, whereas the remaining 25% was assigned by a special proportional method that assigned more of the remaining seats to minority parties.

Formally this was an example of mixed-member majoritarian system.

Sources: Italian Senate

• The Olive Tree

1. Patrizia Toia (Democracy is Freedom, 40.6%)^[1]
2. Antonio Pizzinato (Democrats of the Left, 38.7%)
3. Loris Maconi (Democrats of the Left, 38.4%)
4. Pierluigi Petrini (Democracy is Freedom, 37.0%)
5. Natale Ripamonti (Federation of the Greens, 36.4%)
6. Gianni Piatti (Democrats of the Left, 36.2%)
7. Ornella Piloni (Democrats of the Left, 36.0%)
8. Gianfranco Pagliarulo (Party of Italian Communists, 35.9%)
9. Emanuela Baio (Democracy is Freedom, 35.4%)

• Autonomous Lombard Alliance

1. Elidio De Paoli (Lega per l'Autonomia – Alleanza Lombarda, 11.5%)

• Communist Refoundation Party

1. Luigi Malabarba (Communist Refoundation Party, 6.8%)

• Italy of Values

1. Valerio Carrara (Italy of Values, 4.7%)