Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni won a rare political victory on Thursday after parliament approved a controversial overhaul of the country’s electoral system.
An election law — ostensibly designed to promote Italy’s long-term political stability — was approved by 227 votes to 164 in a secret ballot by lawmakers after Meloni threatened to resign if they rejected it.
“Whoever wins the elections must be able to govern, and whoever is elected must answer to the voters who chose them,” Meloni wrote in a social media post after the vote, adding that the new law would “promote the stability and parliamentary coherence of any government, regardless of its political colour”.
However, analysts say her victory may prove pyrrhic as it could complicate her three-party rightwing coalition’s quest to secure a second term in Italy’s upcoming general elections, due to be held by the end of next year.
The new law incentivises parties to forge large pre-election alliances, which will force Meloni to make tough choices about whether or not to ally with her far-right nemesis, ex-military general Roberto Vannacci, to bolster her fraying coalition’s prospects or risk defeat by the centre-left opposition.
“The irony is that the law was devised to help her and it’s going to create a lot of trouble for her,” said Daniele Albertazzi, a political scientist at the University of Surrey. “Now she absolutely needs to decide what to do with Vannacci. She cannot leave it until after the elections. She has to decide beforehand.”
The electoral system may also face serious legal hurdles before it can take effect, as many civil society groups are geared up to challenge the law in the constitutional court.
Sometimes called the Stabilicum, or Melonellum, the contentious new election system is designed to end Italy’s chronic political turmoil by ensuring elections deliver clear winners, whose ability to govern will be bolstered by a “majority prize” of up to 17.5 per cent of the seats in each house of parliament.
It eliminates first-past-the-post constituencies — which now account for about a third of parliament seats — and moves the country to a system of full proportional representation, a format in which the centre right tends to fare better.
It also establishes the majority prize pot of parliament seats to be awarded to the winning pre-election alliance, provided it secures at least 42 per cent of the popular vote.
To qualify as such an alliance, parties must agree on a joint prime ministerial candidate and political programme before the vote — a requirement already causing friction between the centre-left Democratic Party and its ostensible partner, the populist Five Star Movement.
But with Vannacci’s fledgling far-right National Future party now eroding popular support from the traditional base of Meloni and her allies, it would also be tough for her coalition to hit the threshold needed to claim the majority bonus unless they take him into the coalition, something that Meloni is loath to do.
Lawmakers had griped about other details of the new law that threaten to sharply raise campaign costs for individual candidates and will result in a big drop in women’s representation in the legislature.
But despite her lawmakers’ unease, Albertazzi said Meloni would try to sell the electoral reform to voters as a major achievement after her bid to overhaul the justice system was rejected in a constitutional referendum earlier this year.
“She has a strong argument with the rightwing electorate that she is serious about giving Italy stability beyond herself . . . that she is trying to work for future stability,” Albertazzi said. “It’s some kind of legacy.”
“She knows it might turn against her, but it’s too late. She really prizes the idea of being consistent, coherent and not making U-turns,” he added.
Roberto D’Alimonte, an expert in Italian election systems at Rome’s Luiss University, warned the law might not really deliver on its promise of stability either.
If no coalition reached the 42 per cent threshold needed to secure the majority bonus, he said Italy could face the prospect of renewed political turmoil as the seats would then be distributed via proportional representation.
“If there is no coalition above 42 per cent, we are going [to] have chaos,” he warned. “It will be very very difficult to form a government that is going to be stable — because the system is very fragmented and very polarised.”