- 2008 Italian Senate election, North and Central American division
-
The 2008 Italian general election was the second in which Italian and dual citizens living outside the country could vote by postal ballot in international electoral districts. Twelve members of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and six members of the Italian Senate were elected in this way.
Italian and dual citizens in North America and Central America (including the Caribbean) elected one member of the Italian Senate. The winning candidate was Basilio Giordano from Silvio Berlusconi's party, known as the People of Freedom.
Contents
The process
All electors could vote for a political list and also cast a first preference vote for a specific candidate. The party with the highest number of list votes won the Senate seat, and the winning party's candidate with the highest number of first preference votes was declared elected.
The parties
Fouur electoral lists contested the North and Central American Senate division. The same lists also fielded candidates for the Chamber of Deputies and North and Central America.
The governing centre-left Democratic Party ran a united slate, as did Berlusconi's right-wing opposition list. The moderately conservative Union of the Centre (UDC), formerly aligned with Berlusconi, ran a separate list, as did a small coalition of right-wing and far-right parties called The Right–Tricolour Flame.
All of the party lists fielded two candidates.
The candidates
People of Freedom
- Basilio Giordano is a publisher and former municipal politician in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
- Augusto Sorriso is a former mayor of Licata, Sicily, and an entrepreneur based in New Jersey. He had previously sought election to the Italian Senate in 2006.
Democratic Party
- Renato Turano is an entrepreneur in Chicago. He served in the Italian Senate from 2006 to 2008.
- Marina Piazzi was born in Bologna on April 10, 1954, and moved to Mexico in 1976. She has taught Italian as a second language at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Mexico City and worked in the Italian department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Piazzi has been active for many years with the General Council for Italians Abroad and other Italian community organizations.[1]
Union of the Centre
- Massimo Seracini (June 7, 1943–January 16, 2009) was born in Florence and received an economics degree from the University of Florence in 1962. He moved to the United States of America in the 1960s and worked in real estate in California.[2] After his marriage failed, he returned to Florence and opened a bistro. He lived for extended periods in both countries during the last decades of his life and became a fixture of the Italian community in San Diego. Seracini had previously campaigned for an overseas seat in the Italian Chamber of Deputies in the 2006 general election as a candidate of the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats. A newspaper report from 2006 described him as "vague on details about his platform" but eager to serve Italians living in the diaspora.[3] He died in San Diego in 2009, after a two-year battle with cancer.[4]
- Vittorio Coco is a broadcaster in Toronto, Canada. He had previously sought election to the Italian Senate in 2006.
The Right–Tricolour Flame
- Giuseppe (Joseph) P. Cirnigliaro was born on November 10, 1954, in Militello in Val di Catania, Sicily.[5] He ran for the New York State Senate's 19th district as a Republican candidate in 1988.[6] During the 2008 campaign, he argued that Italy should adopt a strong presidential model of government akin to that of the United States of America.[7]
- Franco Misuraca was born on June 10, 1943, in Aprigliano, Calabria, and later moved to Toronto, Canada.[8] He is a longtime supporter of the right-wing Italian Social Movement. In 2008, he centered his campaign around the slogan, "God, country, and family."[9]
The results
Berlusconi's electoral coalition won a narrow plurality, defeating the Democratic Party by only 793 votes. Basilio Giordano received the most votes of the candidates on Berlusconi's list and was declared elected.
Democratic Party incumbent Renato Turano actually received more first preference votes than Giordano, but, as his party list was defeated, he was not returned to office.[10]
2008 Italian general election results: Senate, North and Central America region Party Votes % Senators People of Freedom 38,896 44.96 1 Democratic Party 38,103 44.04 Union of the Centre 7,330 8.47 The Right–Tricolour Flame 2,193 2.53 Total valid votes 86,522 100.00 People of Freedom candidate preference votes Basilio Giordano (elected) 13,083 Augusto Sorriso 8,699 Democratic Party candidate preference votes (x)Renato Turano 15,223 Marina Piazzi 7,431 Union of the Centre candidate preference votes Massimo Seracini 2,194 Vittorio Coco 1,791 The Right–Tricolour Flame candidate preference votes Giuseppe Cirnigliaro 544 Franco Misuraca 461 Source: ARCHIVIO STORICO DELLE ELEZIONI - Consultazione dati: Senato 13/04/2008, Area ESTERO, Ripartizione AMERICA SETTENTRIONALE E CENTRALE, Ministerio dell'Interno, Government of Italy, accessed 27 July 2011. Voters were not required to give a preference vote for any candidate.
Detailed results by country
More than 90 per cent of the total votes were cast in the United States of America and Canada. The Democratic Party won narrow victory in the United States, Mexico, and Nicaragua, but was defeated everywhere else. The People of Freedom won a narrow victory in Canada; this was a significant shift from the 2006 election, when the centre-left had won by a credible margin.
Antigua and Barbuda
Party Votes % Democratic Party 0 0.00 People of Freedom 0 0.00 Union of the Centre 0 0.00 The Right–Tricolour Flame 0 0.00 Total valid votes 0 0.00 Bahamas
Party Votes % Democratic Party 0 0.00 People of Freedom 0 0.00 Union of the Centre 0 0.00 The Right–Tricolour Flame 0 0.00 Total valid votes 0 0.00 Barbados
Party Votes % Democratic Party 0 0.00 People of Freedom 0 0.00 Union of the Centre 0 0.00 The Right–Tricolour Flame 0 0.00 Total valid votes 0 0.00 Belize
Party Votes % Democratic Party 0 0.00 People of Freedom 0 0.00 Union of the Centre 0 0.00 The Right–Tricolour Flame 0 0.00 Total valid votes 0 0.00 Canada
Party Votes % People of Freedom 16,184 45.15 Democratic Party 15,794 44.06 Union of the Centre 3,274 9.13 The Right–Tricolour Flame 595 1.66 Total valid votes 35,847 42.82 Costa Rica
Party Votes % People of Freedom 385 55.56 Democratic Party 248 35.79 Union of the Centre 34 4.91 The Right–Tricolour Flame 26 3.75 Total valid votes 693 0.83 Dominican Republic
Party Votes % People of Freedom 723 58.88 Democratic Party 294 23.94 The Right–Tricolour Flame 140 11.40 Union of the Centre 71 5.78 Total valid votes 1,228 1.47 El Salvador
Party Votes % People of Freedom 244 65.42 Democratic Party 99 26.54 Union of the Centre 22 5.90 The Right–Tricolour Flame 8 2.14 Total valid votes 373 0.45 Grenada
Party Votes % Democratic Party 0 0.00 People of Freedom 0 0.00 Union of the Centre 0 0.00 The Right–Tricolour Flame 0 0.00 Total valid votes 0 0.00 Guatemala
Party Votes % People of Freedom 584 64.82 Democratic Party 186 20.64 The Right–Tricolour Flame 73 8.10 Union of the Centre 58 6.44 Total valid votes 901 1.08 Haiti
Party Votes % Democratic Party 0 0.00 People of Freedom 0 0.00 Union of the Centre 0 0.00 The Right–Tricolour Flame 0 0.00 Total valid votes 0 0.00 Honduras
Party Votes % People of Freedom 44 45.36 Democratic Party 37 38.14 Union of the Centre 14 14.43 The Right–Tricolour Flame 2 2.06 Total valid votes 97 0.12 Mexico
Party Votes % Democratic Party 667 47.41 People of Freedom 599 42.57 Union of the Centre 107 7.60 The Right–Tricolour Flame 34 2.42 Total valid votes 1,407 1.68 Nicaragua
Party Votes % Democratic Party 64 47.76 People of Freedom 50 37.31 Union of the Centre 10 7.46 The Right–Tricolour Flame 10 7.46 Total valid votes 134 0.16 Panama
Party Votes % People of Freedom 129 50.99 Democratic Party 91 35.97 Union of the Centre 25 9.88 The Right–Tricolour Flame 8 3.16 Total valid votes 253 0.30 United States of America
Party Votes % Democratic Party 19,254 45.00 People of Freedom 18,832 44.01 Union of the Centre 3,472 8.11 The Right–Tricolour Flame 1,230 2.87 Total valid votes 42,788 51.11 Note: The country-by-country totals provided by the Italian Ministry of the Interior do not entirely correspond with the final totals provided by the same source. Adding up the country-by-country totals yields the following results: People of Freedom 37,774; Democratic Party 36,734; Union of the Centre 7,087; The Right–Tricolour Flame 2,126. These results are the same as the provisional totals provided by La Repubblica with 120 out of 123 polling districts reporting. It is therefore assumed that the country-by-country totals are provisional.
References
- ^ Marina Piazzi (biography), Consiglio Generale degli Italiani all'Estero, accessed 2 August 2011; CONSULTAZIONE DATI: Senato del 13/04/2008, Area ESTERO, Ripartizione AMERICA SETTENTRIONALE E CENTRALE, Ministero dell' Interno, Government of Italy, accessed 3 August 2011.
- ^ Candidato alla Camera: Massimo Seracini, i-Italy, accessed 2 August 2011
- ^ Rachel Rivera, "NY seeks Italy Senate seat to represent Italians abroad," Associated Press Newswires, 10 January 2006, 15:50.
- ^ Blanca Gonzalez, "Massimo Seracini: Entrepreneur adored San Diego as much as his native Florence," San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 February 2009, B4.
- ^ CONSULTAZIONE DATI: Senato del 13/04/2008, Area ESTERO, Ripartizione AMERICA SETTENTRIONALE E CENTRALE; LA DESTRA - FIAMMA TRICOLORE, accessed 4 August 2011.
- ^ "The Elections: New York State Senate," New York Times, 10 November 1988.
- ^ Letizia Tesi, "Giuseppe Cirnigliaro(La Destra)«Meno sprechi e sistema politico americano»", Corriere Canadese, 2 April 2008, accessed 4 August 2011. During the course of this interview, Cirnigliaro noted that he had been educated in Rome and Paris and at Columbia University in New York.
- ^ CONSULTAZIONE DATI: Senato del 13/04/2008, Area ESTERO, Ripartizione AMERICA SETTENTRIONALE E CENTRALE; LA DESTRA - FIAMMA TRICOLORE, accessed 4 August 2011.
- ^ [http://www.corriere.com/viewstory.php?storyid=73202 "Franco Misuraca: «Sono tre i valori chiave, Dio, patria e famiglia»", Corriere Canadese, 1 April 2008, accessed 4 August 2011.
- ^ Gli eletti in Nordamerica; Turano il candidato pìu votato per il Senato, ma il seggio lo conquista il PDL, America Oggi, 17 April 2008, accessed 1 August 2011.
Categories:- 2008 elections in Italy
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
