Bettino Craxi in the context of "Italian Democratic Socialist Party"

General elections were held in Italy on 5 and 6 April 1992. They were the first without the traditionally second most important political force in Italian politics, the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which had been disbanded in 1991. Most of its members split between the more democratic socialist-oriented Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), while a minority who did not want to renounce the communist tradition became the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC); between them, they gained around 4% less than what the already declining PCI had obtained in the 1987 Italian general election, despite PRC absorbing the disbanded Proletarian Democracy (DP).

The other major feature was the sudden rise of the Northern League (LN), a federalist party that increased its vote from 0.5% of the preceding elections to more than 8%, increasing from a single member both in the Chamber and the Senate to 55 and 25, respectively. The "long wave" (onda lunga) of Bettino Craxi's now centrist-oriented Italian Socialist Party (PSI), which in the past elections had been forecast next to overcome PCI, seemed to stop. Christian Democracy (DC) and the other traditional government parties, with the exception of the Italian Republican Party (PRI) and the Italian Liberal Party (PLI), also experienced a slight decrease in their vote.

Mani pulite (Italian: [ˈmaːni puˈliːte]; lit. 'clean hands') was a nationwide judicial investigation into political corruption in Italy held in the early 1990s, resulting in the demise of the First Italian Republic and the disappearance of many political parties. Some politicians and industry leaders committed suicide after their crimes were exposed. Antonio Di Pietro was the main judicial figure in charge of the investigation. In some accounts, as many as 5,000 public figures fell under suspicion. At one point, more than half of the members of the Italian Parliament were under indictment, while more than 400 city and town councils were dissolved because of corruption charges. The estimated value of bribes paid annually in the 1980s by Italian and foreign companies bidding for large government contracts reached US$4 billion (6.5 trillion lire).

The corrupt system uncovered by the investigation was referred to as Tangentopoli (Italian pronunciation: [tandʒenˈtɔːpoli]). The term derives from Italian tangente, which means "kickback", and in this context refers to kickbacks given for public works contracts, and Greek polis meaning "city"; it is thus sometimes translated as "Bribesville" or "Kickback City". Former Italian prime minister Bettino Craxi became the main figure of the scandal and defended himself by saying that all parties did what he was accused of; Craxi, who fled to Hammamet, Tunisia, in 1994, was convicted twice for corruption and illicit financing to political parties and had four more trials pending by the time of his death in 2000. The Italian Communist Party (PCI) and some of its former members, mainly of its right wing, were also investigated but were acquitted.

The Pentapartito (from Greek πέντε, "five", and Italian partito, "party"), commonly shortened to CAF (from the initials of Craxi, Andreotti and Forlani), refers to the coalition government of five Italian political parties that formed between June 1981 and April 1991. The pro-European and Atlanticist coalition comprised the Christian Democracy (DC), the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI), Italian Liberal Party (PLI), and Italian Republican Party (PRI).