Now that the final results are (almost) in, let’s take a look at what happened. Easing gently in, let’s start by comparing the poll averages with the final results for each party:
| Party | Last point on the trend line | Actual vote-share, Camera | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sinistra Arcobaleno | 6.863% | 3.084% | -3.779 |
| Partito Democratico | 34.040% | 33.174% | -0.876 |
| Lega Nord | 5.060% | 8.297% | 3.237% |
| Italia dei Valori | 3.350% | 4.371% | 1.02% |
| Popolo delle Libertà | 38.974% | 37.388% | -1.58% |
| UDC | 5.917% | 5.624% | -0.294% |
If there was no movement over the last two weeks – a huge assumption – then we can see that, contrary to last time round, pollsters did not underestimate support for the main party of the centre-right, the PdL. Rather, they overestimated PDL support, but had problems in estimating the success of the Lega.
Intriguingly, the Lega was under-estimated by about as much as the Sinistra Arcobaleno was over-rated. The Lega Nord now claims to be the working class party (partito operaio) of the North. Certainly, it would be interesting to find out how many former Communist voters, losing traditional voting cues with the disappearance of an overtly Communist party, switched their vote to the Lega at the last moment, but this is based on pure speculation.
“Certainly, it would be interesting to find out how many former Communist voters … switched their vote to the Lega at the last moment…”
Though at least one radio program announced several hours ago that, according to their analysis, 15% of former Rifondazionists switched to Lega and a smaller percentage (which I don’t recall) of Verdi did the same. I can hardly wrap my mind around it, but I bet we see this broken down more fully in the coming days.
Link | April 15th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Fascinating stuff. To me these elections signify two things.
First that the descendants of the once mighty Communist Party will not be represented in this legislature. This is quite amazing. I guess Italy has joined most other Western democracies in this aspect. However it is a shame that Bertinotti won’t be around. I thought he was good.
Secondly is the increase of the Lega Nord. Considering the assistance it gave il Popolo delle Libertà in winning these elections I wonder whether their federalist program will be a feature of this government, and how Allieanza Nazionale will feel about it.
Link | April 16th, 2008 at 3:14 am
Rank and Vile » Blog Archive » Berlusconi does a Lazarus in Italy wrote:
[...] UPDATE Chris Hanretty also posts about the Italian elections. [...]
Link | April 16th, 2008 at 3:17 am
Berlusconi does a Lazarus in Italy « The accidental Australian wrote:
[...] UPDATE Chris Hanretty also posts about the Italian elections. [...]
Link | April 16th, 2008 at 3:26 am
The accidental Australian » Berlusconi does a Lazarus in Italy wrote:
[...] UPDATE Chris Hanretty also posts about the Italian elections. [...]
Link | April 28th, 2008 at 7:40 am