Primary elections were first introduced in Italy by Lega Nord in 1995, but were seldom used until before the 2005 regional elections. In that occasion the centre-left The Union coalition held open primaries in order to select candidates for President of Apulia and Calabria.
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A more politically significant primary was held on 16 October 2005, when The Union asked its voters to decide the candidate for Prime Minister in the 2006 general election: 4,300,000 voters showed up and Romano Prodi won hands down. Two years later, on 14 October 2007, voters of the Democratic Party were called to choose the party leader among a list of six, their representatives to the Constituent Assembly and the local leaders. The primary was a success, involving more than 3,500,000 people across Italy, and gave to the winner Walter Veltroni momentum in a difficult period for the government and the centre-left coalition.
The centre-right (see House of Freedoms, The People of Freedom, centre-right coalition and Forza Italia) has never held a primary at the national level, but held some experiments at the very local level. If confirmed, the primary election to be held in Sicily on 2 April 2017 will be the most important centre-right primary so far.
Regulatory rules
There are no laws at the national level to govern the conduct of any primary election.
In 2004 Tuscany introduced a regional law regulating primaries, but parties are not mandated to hold primaries. As of today, these rules were used in occasion of the 2005 regional election by the Democrats of the Left and Future Tuscany, and in the 2010 regional election by the Democratic Party and Left Ecology Freedom.
Most relevant primary elections
The list includes the results of primary elections for prime minister, president of region, mayor of a city with 150,000 inhabitants, deputies, senators, MEPs, and leader of major party. All the following primaries were funded and ran by parties, with the sole exception of those for the Regional Council of Tuscany.
2011–2015
*Candidate who was replaced by another candidate without a primary vote in the run-up of the general election.
2016–present
*Candidate who was replaced by another candidate without a primary vote in the run-up of the general election.