Electoral elections: sparks in the Chamber. Fratelli d’Italia does not exclude preferences

A “mild coup d’état”. No, a provision that “achieves the objective of stability and efficiency of government action” without “sacrificing the full representativeness of the Chambers”. The bill that aims to reform the electoral law arrives in the Chamber of the Chamber and the controversy that accompanied the work in the Constitutional Affairs Committee is reinvigorated. And while the FdI group leader in the Chamber, Galeazzo Bignamidoes not rule out the presentation of an amendment signed by the entire centre-right coalition “to allow Italians to be able to indicate their preferences”, the majority and the opposition face each other with firm tones, in a chamber which is practically deserted on a Friday. A ‘scenography’ that allows the dem Gianni Cuperlo to repeat, to Alessandro Urzi’ (FdI), a famous line from ‘Soliti ignoti’: ‘They left you alone…’. Beyond the ironies, the most decisive during the general discussion is the secretary of +Europa, Riccardo Magi. During his speech – Magi is the minority speaker – he shows a large poster which is a facsimile of the ballot paper that voters will find at the polling stations. “It’s not a sign – he tries to justify himself, the Rules prohibit displaying it in the Chamber – it came to me in a large format, it came like this…”, he insists, placing the writing he printed in large letters in front of the cameras: ‘Your vote doesn’t count’. The vice president Anna Ascani he calls him to order, invites him to remove the poster, but Magi doesn’t stop, tears up the maxi card and, turning to the centre-right benches, shouts (because his microphone has been turned off): “You are tearing up the Constitution”. A few minutes later, when the floor was given to the Minister for Institutional Reforms, Elisabetta CasellatiMagi takes out more signs and is eventually expelled from the Chamber. The session was suspended and resumed a few minutes later, the time needed to convince the +EU parliamentarian to leave the Chamber to avoid further sanctions.

To reporters in Transatlantico, the deputy lists the main reasons for his protest: “This electoral law marks a coup d’état, mild and bureaucratic but a coup d’état. It goes beyond the mark and accepts that Parliament becomes a body that is elected by dragging the head: it is unacceptable. The aggravating factor – he underlines – is that the parties that are in Parliament close themselves in and do not want there to be smaller, minor, inconvenient subjects, as perhaps we are for the type of battles and struggles that we carry forward, that can participate in the electoral competition”. The reference is to the law that does not authorize the digital collection of the signatures necessary to present the lists and candidatures. When the works are reopened, the word returns to Casellati. “The change introduced in the new text pushes the bar even higher than what was requested by the Consulta: to access the governability bonus – explains the minister in a passage of his speech – it will be necessary to gather a consensus equal to at least 42% of the valid votes cast. With the new threshold, the winning coalition of the electoral comparison will be mathematically assured a majority in Parliament; and not as a result of unpredictable and often incomprehensible transformative alchemies, but through a free choice of the voters”. Words that the Democratic Party rejects with the promise that it will continue to fight the bill “in Parliament and in the country because Italy – says Federico Fornaro – needs a law that strengthens representation and brings the elected representative closer to the voter and not a reform dictated by partisan convenience”. Paolo Emilio Russo, group leader of Forza Italia in the Constitutional Affairs commission, claims that “this system makes the candidates recognizable and gives the parties back their constitutional role as filters of meritocracy and bodies responsible for representation”.

Alessandro Urzi(FdI) reiterates that the provision fulfills the centre-right’s commitment to deliver a model electoral system that guarantees governments that are the expression of the popular will: “No more palace agreements from which unlikely presidents of the technical council emerge who are the expression of the party secretariats and not of the free will of the Italians”, he says. The 5 Star Movement recalls “the forcing perpetrated by the majority” in the commission and the exclusion of the opposition “from the drafting of the text and the amending proposals. It is a law born from the arrogance of the majority – specifies Filippo Scerra – which should instead share the rules of the game”. Italia viva’s judgment is also harsh: “The one brought forward by the majority is a superficial electoral law, lacking on a constitutional level and which will predictably have the effect of further decreasing voter participation”, it predicts Roberto Giachetti. “Given the many emergencies the country has to deal with – he continues – the government’s only real priority is the electoral law”. Chiara Braga, dem group leader in Montecitorio, intervenes last and highlights “the almost total aphonia of the majority and the total silence, which says more than a thousand words, of Salvini’s League”. In reply, Casellati rejects those from the opposition who maintain that the electoral law under discussion is an advance on the premiership. The reform “does not affect the powers of the Prime Minister and does not affect the powers of the Head of State”, therefore “talking about the premiership is an outlier which aims to draw attention away from an electoral law which does not involve any laceration of the constitutional fabric, on the contrary – he concludes – it is built within the perimeter of the Constitution and the sentences of the Constitutional Court, which does not involve any authoritarian drift but favors stability and full representativeness of the Chambers”. The discussion in the Chamber will resume next week with the vote on the four preliminary questions on constitutionality presented by the centre-left. A group leader, already scheduled for Wednesday, will establish the timing of the examination of the bill.