Editing Primary election (section)

===Italy===
{{Main|Primary elections in Italy}}

Primary election were introduced in Italy to establish the [[Centre-left coalition (Italy)|centre-left]] candidates for [[2005 Italian regional elections|2005 regional election]]. In that occasion the centre-left [[The Union (Italy)|The Union]] coalition held open primaries in order to select candidates for President of [[Apulia]] and [[Calabria]]. A more politically significant primary was held on 16 October 2005, when [[The Union (Italy)|The Union]] asked its voters to decide the candidate for Prime Minister in the [[2006 Italian general election|2006 general election]]: 4,300,000 voters showed up and [[Romano Prodi]] won hands down. Two years later, on 14 October 2007, voters of the [[Democratic Party (Italy)|Democratic Party]] were called to choose the party leader among a list of six, their representatives to the Constituent Assembly and the local leaders. The primary was a success, involving more than 3,500,000 people across Italy, and gave to the winner [[Walter Veltroni]] momentum in a difficult period for the government and the centre-left coalition. The centre-right (see [[House of Freedoms]], [[The People of Freedom]], [[Centre-right coalition (Italy)|centre-right coalition]] and [[Forza Italia (2013)|Forza Italia]]) has never held a primary at the national level, but held some experiments at the very local level.