1948 Italian general election in the context of Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948

Oscar Luigi Scalfaro (Italian: [ˈɔskar luˈiːdʒi ˈskalfaro]; 9 September 1918 – 29 January 2012) was an Italian politician who served as President of Italy from 1992 to 1999. A member of Christian Democracy (DC), he became an independent politician after the DC's dissolution in 1992, and was close to the centre-left Democratic Party when it was founded in 2007. Before his election to the Presidency, he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies for Turin for 44 years from 1948 to 1992.

Benedetto Croce, OCI, COSML (/ˈkroʊtʃeɪ/ KROH-chay; Italian: [beneˈdetto ˈkroːtʃe]; 25 February 1866 – 20 November 1952)was an Italian idealist philosopher, historian, and politician who wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, historiography, and aesthetics. A political liberal in most regards, he formulated a distinction between liberalism (as support for civil liberties) and "liberism" (as support for laissez-faire economics and capitalism). Croce had considerable influence on other Italian intellectuals, from Marxists to Italian fascists, such as Antonio Gramsci and Giovanni Gentile, respectively.

He had a long career in the Italian Parliament, joining the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy in 1910, serving through Fascism and the Second World War before being elected to the Constituent Assembly as a Liberal. In the 1948 general election he was elected to the new republican Senate and served there until his death. He was a longtime member of the Italian Liberal Party, serving as its president from 1944 to 1947.