Most of its members split between the more democratic socialist-oriented Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), while a minority who did not want to renounce the communist tradition became the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC); between them, they gained around 4% less than what the already declining PCI had obtained in the 1987 Italian general election, despite PRC absorbing the disbanded Proletarian Democracy (DP).

The "long wave" (onda lunga) of Bettino Craxi's now centrist-oriented Italian Socialist Party (PSI), which in the past elections had been forecast next to overcome PCI, seemed to stop.

The remaining votes and seats were transferred at national level, where they were divided using the Hare quota, and automatically distributed to best losers into the local lists.

The candidates needed a landslide victory of two thirds of votes to be elected, a goal which could be reached only by the German minorities in South Tirol.

The collapse of the Communist governments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had convinced Occhetto that the era of Eurocommunism was over, and he transformed the PCI into a progressive left-wing party, the PDS.

On 17 February 1992, judge Antonio Di Pietro had Mario Chiesa, a member of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), arrested for accepting a bribe from a Milan cleaning firm.

[5][6] Contrarily to what many pundits observed at the beginning of the 1990s, the Northern League became a stable political force and it is by far the oldest party among those represented in the Italian Parliament.

Christian Democracy (DC) suffered a significant swing against it, but the coalition it had led prior to the elections managed to retain a small majority.

This essentially transformed the Senate electoral law from de facto pure proportional representation to a mixed-member majoritarian system.