Leaders and parties after the Italian elections

The Italian political system that emerged from 24th-25th February 2013 elections appears significantly different from the previous one in 2008. A bipolar and limited party system has been replaced by a multi-polar and more fragmented system where three major parties are in place, along with a medium and some small-sized ones. Aside a small-sized centre, a coalition of Left and a coalition of Right, a fourth populist and anti-system force has appeared, irreducible to the traditional right-left pattern. The hypothesis proposed in this paper is that this result lies back in the profound crisis of the two major parties (the People of Freedom party and the Democratic Party) and of their leaderships. A party strongly dominated by its leader and weakly institutionalized the former, a well-structured organization lacking a modern and effective leadership the latter, both parties have missed the opportunity to become the dominant leading forces, able to form homogeneous majorities, respectively of the left and the right sides of a bipolar political system.