Why was the monarchy so much more popular in the south? It seems ironic the Savoy monarchy would be popular in the former Two Sicilies, which was essentially conquered by Sardinia-Piedmont and was treated almost like colonial territory by the Kingdom of Italy.
Why was the monarchy so much more popular in the south? It seems ironic the Savoy monarchy would be popular in the former Two Sicilies, which was essentially conquered by Sardinia-Piedmont and was treated almost like colonial territory by the Kingdom of Italy.
"The turnover of a few thousand votes here and there" will overcome a two million vote majority?! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_Italian_institutional_referendum And as that article notes, monarchists were never able to prove fraud, whatever their suspicions. (Such accusations, after all, n were common among losing parties in Italian elections.)
When one considers the large vote given for clearly pro-Republic parties--the Communists, Socialists, Action Party, Republican party, etc.--and considers that "On 25 April, at the congress of Democrazia Cristiana, Attilio Piccioni revealed that, after an internal investigation, the opinion of the members of the party was 60% in favour of the republic, 17% in favour of the monarchy, and 23% undecided" (ibid.) I would say that if anything the monarchists did a little bit better than one might have expected. Obviously the DC's voters were more monarchist than its cadres, but not nearly enough so to save the monarchy.
Lets posit a full blown civil war between communists and anti-communists either in Greece or preferably Yugoslavia from late 1945. (Technically the Greek civil war begun in 31st March 1946 but was rather low key for most of 1946) How much does it affect anti-communist fear and hence pro-monarchy attitudes within Italy? After all the sole thing to save the Greek monarchy in he post war referendum was the republican block being split by fear of the communists with large number of republicans voting for the monarchy in addition to the communists boycotting it.