Given that this was only the second primary campaign in the party’s short history, and the first in which there was no clear front-runner, there was a high degree of ex ante uncertainty about the outcome of the conflict. However, I’d argue that the outcome of the primary could readily have been predicted even prior to the beginning of the official campaign.

The reasons for considering Franceschini as the prohibitive favourite were the fact that his political line represented a continuation of the status quo, the status quo represented by Veltroni, which commanded a majority of the party in the primaries of 2007.

Second, Franceschini, as acting party secretary, enjoyed a higher media profile and the benefits of having control over the levers of power within the party.

On the other hand, Franceschini benefitted from extremely limited name recognition both within and outside of the party immediately prior to his appointing as acting secretary; and the political line pursued by Veltroni had certainly not paid off for Veltroni. Additionally, whilst Veltroni’s background in the PCI compensated for his centrist political line, the same could not be said for Franceschini.

Conversely, Bersani, whilst he had lower name recognition outside the party, did have long-standing roots within the party, and had a sufficiently strong network of supporters across the country to allow him to consider running against Veltroni in the party’s first leadership primary.

Moreover, almost every opinion poll conducted since the summer showed Bersani enjoying a lead over Franceschini, though the size of this lead varied [An Ipsos poll in late June showed Bersani marginally ahead (41% to 39%). A simera poll of the 7th July showed Bersani ahead by 25% to 10%; an IPR poll of the 11th August showed Bersani clearly ahead of Franceschini (54% to 35%); that margin fell in a poll by Crespi Ricerche one month later (43.7% to 39.6%)].

Thus, much of the uncertainty surrounding the primary was due to doubt about whether Bersani’s support was broad enough to include primary voters, and whether it would be deep enough to bring Bersani the majority of votes he needed to avoid a run-off. Thus, although in the next part I’ll discuss dynamics over time and across different sections of the party, the eventual outcome would likely still have been the same had these dynamics been different.