page_title: Matteo Renzi
section_title: 2018 general election
hierarchical_section_title: Matteo Renzi / Elections / 2018 general election
caption_attribution_description: English: 6-point average trend line of poll results from 25 February 2013 to the present day, with each line corresponding to a political party. &#160;&#160; Democratic Party (PD) &#160;&#160; Five Star Movement (M5S) &#160;&#160; Forza Italia (FI) &#160;&#160; New Centre-Right (NCD)/Popular Area (AP) &#160;&#160; Civic Choice (SC) &#160;&#160; Lega Nord (LN) &#160;&#160; Left Ecology Freedom/Italian Left (SEL/SI) &#160;&#160; Brothers of Italy (FdI) &#160;&#160; Union of the Centre (UdC) Italiano: Sondaggi elettorali con media a 15 giorni. &#160;&#160; Partito Democratico (PD) &#160;&#160; Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) &#160;&#160; Forza Italia (FI) &#160;&#160; Nuovo Centrodestra (NCD)/Popular Area (AP) &#160;&#160; Scelta Civica (SC) &#160;&#160; Lega Nord (LN) &#160;&#160; Sinistra Ecologia Libertà/Sinistra Italiana (SEL/SI) &#160;&#160; Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) &#160;&#160; Unione di Centro (UdC)
context_page_description: Matteo Renzi is an Italian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from February 2014 until December 2016. He has been an Italian Senator for Florence since 2018.
  After serving as the President of the Province of Florence from 2004 to 2009 and the Mayor of Florence from 2009 to 2014, Renzi was elected Secretary of the Democratic Party, holding this role from 2013 to 2018, with a brief interruption in 2017. He resigned as Party Secretary following defeat in the 2018 election. In September 2019, he left the PD, founding Italia Viva, his own liberal movement.
  At the age of 39 years and 42 days upon assuming office, Renzi is the youngest person to have served as Italian Prime Minister and was at the time the youngest leader in the G7. He was also the first serving Mayor to become Prime Minister. Renzi was sometimes described as the de facto leader of the Party of European Socialists, in opposition to the European People's Party associated with Angela Merkel; the two leaders were together often referred to as Merkenzi.
context_section_description: The 2018 Italian general election was held on 4 March 2018 after the Italian Parliament was dissolved by President Sergio Mattarella on 28 December 2017.
  Renzi led a centre-left coalition composed by his Democratic Party, the liberal More Europe of Emma Bonino, the centrist Popular Civic List of Beatrice Lorenzin and the progressive Together of Giulio Santagata. The centre-left was affected by a political schism, when many members of PD's left-wing faction, like Bersani, D'Alema and Speranza, left the party founding another movement, known as Democrats and Progressives (MDP); in the election MDP run under the joint list Free and Equal led by Pietro Grasso.
  In March election, the centre-right alliance, in which Matteo Salvini's League emerged as the main political, won a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate with 37.0% of votes, while the anti-establishment Five Star Movement led by Luigi Di Maio became the party with the largest number of votes (32.7%). Renzi's centre-left coalition came only third with 22.9% of votes. However, no political group or party won an outright majority, resulting in a hung parliament.
caption: Rise and fall of the Democratic Party (represented in red) from 2013 to 2018
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