The distribution of seats in the country’s parliament might suggest so. The right is expected to have 237 of the 400 places in the Chamber of Deputies and 115 of the 200 in the Senate. Significantly, in both houses, the Brothers will outnumber all of their allies combined (see chart).
But the right owes its victory not so much to popularity as to canny adaptation to the electoral system. In Italy 37% of the seats are allocated on a first-past-the-post basis, which generously rewards alliances. And while Italy’s conservatives hung together, their adversaries split.
The leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (pd), Enrico Letta, ruled out a link with the left-leaning Five Star Movement (m5s) because of its part in toppling the outgoing government of Mario Draghi. Carlo Calenda, founder of a small centrist party called Action, then scrapped a deal with the pd and joined with another small party, Italia Viva. The pd thus ended up campaigning in a bloc with a smattering of political minnows. Their alliance won only 26% of the national ballot to the right’s 44%. But together the centre-left, centre and Five Stars notched up 49%, which might have been enough to win, had they been united.
Instead they committed electoral suicide. The effects were starkest in the winner-takes-all constituencies. With fewer than half the votes, the right took more than three-quarters of the first-past-the-post seats. Mr Letta took the rap. The day after the election, he announced a pd congress at which, he said, he would not stand for re-election. Front-runners to succeed him include Stefano Bonaccini, governor of Emilia-Romagna, and Dario Nardella, mayor of Florence. There is also an intriguing outsider: Swiss-born Elly Schlein, Mr Bonaccini’s deputy, who left the pd seven years ago and is now with the Greens.