At the dawn of the new Italy, the vote for freedom turns pink

After twenty years the seals were broken fascist dictatorship had placed on the ballot boxes. The March 10, 1946 the signature of Umberto of Savoy, lieutenant of the Kingdom on legislative decree n. 74 opened a new phase in Italian history. And not only because the fate of the country was entrusted to the vote of the Italians, but also because for the first time women also contributed to the construction of democracy. That same day the first administrative elections also open, which in the first phase will take place from 10 March to 7 April, in five rounds involving 5,722 Municipalities, equal to over 75% of the total. On the first day, the voters of 436 municipalities are called to the polls, of which 7 are capitals.

Umberto’s lieutenant decree and the obligation to go to the polls

The scope of the lieutenant legislative decree is truly revolutionary, well beyond the legal trappings of the creation of the Constituent Assembly which will be “elected by universal suffrage with direct, free and secret vote, attributed to lists of competing candidates” and whose representation will be attributed with the criterion proportional. The exercise of the vote is expressly “an obligation which no citizen can escape without failing in his precise duty towards the country in a decisive moment of national life. The list of those who abstain from voting in the elections for the Constituent Assembly, without justified reason, will be displayed on the municipal notice board for a period of one month”.

Avoiding this civic duty requires the inclusion of the mention “did not vote” on certificates of good conduct for five years. The measure will have to lead democratically to the 573 deputies in the Constituent Assembly. But we already know that there will actually be 556 because the province of Bolzano and the Trieste-Venezia Giulia-Zara district had not yet returned under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Italy.

The underlining “citizens” to indicate the granting of the right

Article 4 establishes that they can exercise the right to vote all citizens (perhaps not surprisingly omitting to expressly specify the sex) who reached the age of majority by 31 December 1945. The implicit form on the active electorate used in the lieutenant decree n. 23 of 1 February 1945 issued by the Bonomi Government is explicitly superseded by article 7 of 74/1946 which states: “Italian citizens who, on election day, have reached the age of 25 are eligible to participate in the Constituent Assembly”.

The word “citizens” opens up a new era of rights, because women can vote and can be voted for. Precisely on March 10, the municipal administrations that fascism had entrusted to the leadership of the mayors who were appointed by the regime were recreated. In the seven capitals, the Communist Party prevails in Imperia and Grosseto (in both cases with 44.5%), the Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity in Arezzo (33.5) and Rieti (36.1), the Christian Democracy in Frosinone (52.7) and Nuoro (31.2) and with an exploit in Enna by the Fighters and Veterans (21.9%).

The Christian Democrat Caterina Tufarelli Palumbo is the youngest mayor in Italy

The first female mayor was elected on 10 March 1946 in San Sosti, in the province of Cosenza. This is Caterina Tufarelli Palumbo (1922-1979), candidate on the list of the Christian Democrats, daughter of a lawyer, graduated in Law, married with three children. When he receives the tricolor sash on March 23, he turned 24 a month ago; After her, ten other women will be elected mayor, but she will remain the youngest ever. He left his position in 1952 and since 2016 his portrait has stood out on a wall of the Women’s Hall in Montecitorio. In the five rounds of March-April, approximately two thousand women will be elected to the various municipal councils.

The hope of Pope Pius XII and the turning point with the institutional referendum

Il Italian Women’s Centerfounded on March 1, 1945, was thus greeted by Pope Pius XII: “In your social and political action, much depends on the legislation of the State and the administration of the Municipalities. Therefore the ballot paper is in the hands of women an important means of fulfilling their rigorous duty of conscience”.

The turnout was high and will be so in all phases of that 1946 of great and epochal changes, whose historical focal point lies in the institutional referendum of 2-3 June, often erroneously indicated as the symbolic moment of the vote for women. The Constituent Assembly that will write the Charter of the Republic will include 21 women (9 Christian Democrats, 9 Communists, one Socialist and one from the Common Man front), less than 4% of its composition, and only 5 of the small Commission of 75. But by now the path to equalization was indicated.