Three representatives come from each region (save for the Aosta Valley, which due to its small size only appoints one), so as to guarantee representation for localities and minorities.

For the 1996 national elections, the center-left parties created the Olive Tree coalition while the center-right united again under the House of Freedoms.

[17] This emerging bipolarity represents a major break from the fragmented, multi-party political landscape of the postwar era, although it appears to have reached a plateau since efforts via referendums to further curtail the influence of small parties were defeated in 1999, 2000 and 2009.

[18] Five regions (Aosta Valley, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sardinia, Sicily and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol) have special charters granting them varying degrees of autonomy.

[21] The dominance of the Christian Democratic party (DC) during much of the post-war period lent continuity and comparative stability to Italy's political situation,[22] mainly dominated by the attempt of keeping the Italian Communist Party (PCI) out of power in order to maintain Cold War equilibrium in the region (see May 1947 crisis).

Meanwhile, rising post-war tensions between right-wing and left-wing parties in Italy brought to the radicalization and proliferation of numerous far-left and far-right terrorist organizations throughout the country.

[24][25][26][27] The main event in the First Republic in the 1960s was the inclusion of the Italian Socialist Party in the government after the reducing edge of the Christian Democracy (DC) had forced them to accept this alliance.

In 1960, attempts to incorporate the Italian Social Movement (MSI) within the Tambroni Cabinet, a neo-fascist[28] far-right party and the only surviving political remnant of the Republican Fascist Party that was disbanded in the aftermath of the Italian Civil War (1943–1945), led to short-lived riots in the summer of the same year;[29] as a consequence, Fernando Tambroni was eventually replaced by the Christian Democrat politician Amintore Fanfani as Prime Minister of Italy.

However, this attempt at compromise was stopped by the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978 by the Red Brigades (BR), an extremist left-wing terrorist organization.

Their ability to attract members was largely due to their pragmatic stance, especially their rejection of political extremism and to their growing independence from the Soviet Union (see Eurocommunism).

[31] On 12 December 1969, a roughly decade-long period of extremist left- and right-wing political terrorism, known as The Years of Lead (as in the metal of bullets, Italian: anni di piombo), began with the Piazza Fontana bombing in the center of Milan.

On the other extreme of the political spectrum, the leftist Red Brigades carried out assassinations against specific persons, but were not responsible for any blind bombings.

The Red Brigades killed socialist journalist Walter Tobagi and in their most famous operation kidnapped and assassinated Aldo Moro, president of the Christian Democracy, who was trying to involve the Communist Party in the government through the compromesso storico ("historic compromise"), to which the radical left as well as Washington were opposed.

On 24 October 1990, Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti (DC) revealed to the Parliament the existence of Gladio, NATO's secret "stay-behind" networks which stocked weapons in order to facilitate an armed resistance in case of a communist coup.

In 2000, a Parliament Commission report from the Olive Tree (centre-left) coalition concluded that the strategy of tension followed by Gladio had been supported by the United States to "stop the PCI and, to a certain degree, the PSI [Italian Socialist Party] from reaching executive power in the country".

As the Socialist Party moved to more moderate positions, it attracted many reformists, some of whom were irritated by the failure of the communists to modernize.

Increasingly, many on the left began to see the communists as old and out of fashion while Craxi and the socialists seemed to represent a new liberal socialism.

The Communist Party surpassed the Christian Democrats only in the European elections of 1984, held barely two days after Berlinguer's death, a passing that likely drew sympathy from many voters.

The 1994 elections also swept media magnate Silvio Berlusconi (leader of Pole of Freedoms coalition) into office as prime minister.

In April 1996, national elections led to the victory of a center-left coalition, The Olive Tree, under the leadership of Romano Prodi.

A new government was formed by the Democrats of the Left leader and former communist Massimo D'Alema, but in April 2000 he resigned following poor performance by his coalition in regional elections.

The succeeding center-left government, including most of the same parties, was headed by Giuliano Amato, a social democrat, who had previously served as prime minister in 1992–1993 and had at the time sworn never to return to active politics.

Between 17 May 2006 and 21 February 2007, Romano Prodi served as prime minister of Italy following the narrow victory of his The Union coalition over the House of Freedoms led by Silvio Berlusconi in the April 2006 Italian elections.

Consequently, the Prodi Cabinet lost the vote of confidence and the President Giorgio Napolitano called a new general election.

The current average age of Italian university professors is 63, of bank directors and CEOs 67, of members of parliament 56 and of labor union representatives 59.

Thus, despite the fact that the executive branch bears responsibility toward the Parliament, the governments led by Mario Monti (since 2011) and by Enrico Letta (since 2013) were called "unelected governments"[41][42][43] because they won a vote of confidence by a Parliament coalition formed by centre-right and left-right parties that had in turn obtained parliamentary seats by taking part in the elections as competitors, rather than allies.

The issue was a major one, to the extent that the Constitutional Court itself ruled that the Italian Parliament should remain in charge only to reform the electoral system and then should be dissolved.

[48][49] The 2018 general election produced once again a hung parliament that resulted in the birth of an unlikely populist government between the anti-system Five Star Movement (M5S) and Salvini's League, led by Giuseppe Conte.

[60] In February 2021, these extraordinary circumstances brought to the formation of a national coalition government led by former president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi, following IV's decision to withdraw its support to the second Conte cabinet.

President Sergio Mattarella consequently dissolved the Parliament[63] and called a snap election, which resulted in the centre-right coalition, led by Giorgia Meloni, gaining an absolute majority of seats.