According to the decisions of the Meeting of 1906, a third of the seats in the Grand and General Council should be renewed every three years. Twenty councillors, elected in 1909, finished their term this year.
All councillors were elected in their constituency using a plurality-at-large voting, a non-partisan system. However, as previously happened, candidates elected generally belonged to the liberal group which had supported the democratic action of the Citizenry Meeting or, more, were members of the sole organized party of the country, the Sammarinese Socialist Party, which claimed to have won 14 seats. The election fell in a period of social tensions caused by the inflation of the Italian lira during World War One, and the Socialists refused to join the government following many popular protests against heavy prices.[2]
