The Italian Senate has approved the controversial constitutional reform of the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Fratelli d’Italia. 109 MPs voted for the reform on Tuesday in the smaller of the two parliamentary chambers in Rome, 77 against.
The reform has thus overcome a first hurdle. The core issue is that the Prime Minister in Italy is directly elected. The government parties cheered after the vote, while the opposition protested and symbolically held up the constitution.
The constitutional reform stipulates that the Prime Minister will no longer be commissioned by the President to form a government, but will be elected directly by the people for a five-year term. In addition, a majority bonus of 55 percent will be introduced for the most voted party.
This bonus is intended to automatically guarantee the winner of the election a comfortable majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, even if he or she does not receive an absolute majority of the votes.
The bill to amend the constitution, approved by the Senate, will now be sent to the Chamber of Deputies for a vote. The bill failed to receive the two-thirds majority needed to avoid a referendum on Tuesday, with 109 votes. It is not expected to receive one in the Chamber of Deputies either, so this was only a first step towards final approval.
In Italy, any constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers of parliament. If this is not achieved, the matter must be voted on in a referendum. Most recently, the then Prime Minister Matteo Renzi failed in a constitutional referendum in 2016 and was forced to resign.
The right-wing government in Rome wants to use the reform to combat the chronic instability of Italian governments. Since the end of the Second World War, Italy has had a total of almost 70 governments. Many agree that the political system must therefore be reformed. However, the Meloni government’s reform has been sharply criticized by the opposition.
She fears that Meloni’s reform – her party is considered post-fascist – could deprive parliament and the president of important powers. The role of the president, with his key balancing function, would be reduced. Opposition leader Elly Schlein of the social democratic PD said the reform would turn the power structure in Italy on its head. Power would be concentrated in a single person. The opposition announced that it would take action against the plan.
On the day of the vote, the three largest Italian opposition parties demonstrated together for the first time against planned constitutional reforms. Around 2,000 people marched through Rome on Tuesday. They fear, among other things, that the parliament will be weakened by the reforms and that the independence of the judiciary will be restricted. “For the defense of national unity” was one of the slogans of the government opponents.
Among those present were Elly Schlein, the leader of the populist Five Star Movement, Giuseppe Conte, and the leaders of the left-green alliance VS, Nicola Fratoianni and Angelo Bonelli. “We will not allow the government to overhaul the constitution,” said Schlein.
