# 1972 Italian Senate election in Lombardy

Lombardy elected its sixth delegation to the Italian Senate on May 19, 1972. This election was a part of national Italian general election of 1972 even if, according to the Italian Constitution, every senatorial challenge in each Region is a single and independent race.
The election was won by the centrist Christian Democracy, as it happened at national level. Seven Lombard provinces gave a majority or at least a plurality to the winning party, while the agricultural Province of Pavia and Province of Mantua preferred the Italian Communist Party.

## Background

This election was quite a copy of the previous one. The Italian Liberal Party was the sole loser, to its left to the Italian Republican Party and to its right to the Italian Social Movement.

## Electoral system

The electoral system for the Senate was a strange hybrid which established a form of proportional representation into FPTP-like constituencies. A candidate needed a landslide victory of more than 65% of votes to obtain a direct mandate. All constituencies where this result was not reached entered into an at-large calculation based upon the D'Hondt method to distribute the seats between the parties, and candidates with the best percentages of suffrages inside their party list were elected.

## Results

| Party | votes | votes (%) | seats | swing |
| Christian Democracy | 2,072,474 | 41.7 | 20 | = |
| Italian Communist Party & PSIUP | 1,219,259 | 24.5 | 12 | = |
| Italian Socialist Party | 644,694 | 13.0 | 6 | = |
| Italian Social Movement | 303,850 | 6.1 | 2 | 1 |
| Italian Liberal Party | 279,887 | 5.6 | 2 | 2 |
| Italian Democratic Socialist Party | 265,518 | 5.3 | 2 | = |
| Italian Republican Party | 157,535 | 3.2 | 1 | 1 |
| Others | 27,876 | 0.6 | - | = |
| Total parties | 4,970,693 | 100.0 | 45 | - |
Sources: Italian Ministry of the Interior

### Constituencies

| N° | Constituency | Elected | Party | Votes % | Others |
| 1 | Bergamo | Gianbattista Scaglia | Christian Democracy | 59.6% | |
| 2 | Clusone | Giuseppe Belotti | Christian Democracy | 66.6% | |
| 3 | Treviglio | Nullo Biaggi | Christian Democracy | 60.8% | |
| 4 | Brescia | Mino Martinazzoli | Christian Democracy | 44.9% | |
| 5 | Breno | Giacomo Mazzoli | Christian Democracy | 58.1% | |
| 6 | Chiari | Faustino Zugno | Christian Democracy | 58.0% | |
| 7 | Salò | Fabiano De Zan Egidio Ariosto | Christian Democracy Italian Democratic Socialist Party | 49.1% 8.3% | |
| 8 | Como | Ubaldo De Ponti Virginio Bertinelli | Christian Democracy Italian Democratic Socialist Party | 44.0% 9.2% | |
| 9 | Lecco | Tommaso Morlino | Christian Democracy | 52.7% | |
| 10 | Cantù | Mario Martinelli | Christian Democracy | 51.7% | Carlo Porro (PSDI) 7.2% |
| 11 | Cremona | Vincenzo Vernaschi Giuseppe Garoli Giuseppe Grossi | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party Italian Socialist Party | 39.9% 32.0% 15.4% | |
| 12 | Crema | Narciso Patrini | Christian Democracy | 51.2% | |
| 13 | Mantua | Tullia Romagnoli | Italian Communist Party (Gsi) | 31.9% | Leonello Zenti (DC) 35.7% |
| 14 | Ostiglia | Agostino Zavattini Renato Colombo | Italian Communist Party Italian Socialist Party | 39.3% 16.7% | |
| 15 | Milan 1 | Giorgio Bergamasco Giovanni Nencioni Giovanni Spadolini | Italian Liberal Party Italian Social Movement Italian Republican Party | 16.1% 14.8% 9.0% | |
| 16 | Milan 2 | Arturo Robba | Italian Liberal Party | 14.1% | |
| 17 | Milan 3 | Giorgio Pisanò | Italian Social Movement | 11.9% | |
| 18 | Milan 4 | None elected | | | |
| 19 | Milan 5 | Mario Venanzi | Italian Communist Party | 27.2% | |
| 20 | Milan 6 | Lelio Basso | Italian Communist Party (Gsi) | 29.5% | |
| 21 | Abbiategrasso | Luigi Noè Ada Valeria Ruhl Agostino Viviani | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party Italian Socialist Party | 40.2% 29.9% 16.9% | |
| 22 | Rho | Ettore Calvi Modesto Merzario | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party (PSIUP) | 37.7% 31.5% | |
| 23 | Monza | Vittorio Pozzar | Christian Democracy | 41.8% | |
| 24 | Vimercate | Giovanni Marcora Guido Venegoni | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party | 45.8% 25.8% | |
| 25 | Lodi | Camillo Ripamonti Rodolfo Bollini | Christian Democracy Italian Communist Party | 41.6% 33.3% | |
| 26 | Pavia | Renato Cebrelli | Italian Communist Party | 34.2% | |
| 27 | Voghera | Giorgio Piovano | Italian Communist Party | 31.7% | |
| 28 | Vigevano | Armando Cossutta | Italian Communist Party | 42.3% | |
| 29 | Sondrio | Athos Valsecchi Edoardo Catellani | Christian Democracy Italian Socialist Party | 53.0% 18.6% | |
| 30 | Varese | Pio Alessandrini Paolo Cavezzali | Christian Democracy Italian Socialist Party | 41.7% 15.5% | |
| 31 | Busto Arsizio | Pierino Azimonti Michele Zuccalà | Christian Democracy Italian Socialist Party | 43.8% 15.4% | |
* Senators with a direct mandate have bold percentages. The electoral system was, in the other cases, a form of proportional representation and not a FPTP race: so candidates winning with a simple plurality could have (and usually had) a candidate (usually a Christian democrat) with more votes in their constituency.

### Substitutions

* Carlo Porro for Cantù (7.2%) replaced Virginio Bertinelli in 1973. Reason: death.
* Leonello Zenti for Mantua (35.7%) replaced Faustino Zugno in 1975. Reason: death.