ABSTRACT
During the life of the Republican Parliament, the turnover of members has always been kept below 30 percent. The initial phase, culminating in the 1992 elections, represents a partial renewal, which mostly affected the non-governing parties. The raw data on the replacement of parliamentary personnel puts the historical significance of the elections into focus, it cannot tell us much about the real causes of pronounced change in the political class. In the mass party model, parliamentary personnel were chosen by the managing structures of the party. The use of this model by the Italian Communist Party (PCI) began to undergo a transformation beginning in the second half of the 1980s. The data on the parliamentary experience of those elected show a substantial group of senior members, almost all belonging to the National Alliance, and an armada of Forza Italia freshmen. The National Alliance boasts a high level of political professionalism, sending dozens of functionaries and full-time party executives to Parliament.
