«The government's decision to place a vote of confidence in the electoral law represents a serious slap in the face of Parliament. The truth is that the executive is afraid of its majority, of its strength and of the secret vote, even going so far as to change the physical arrangement of the Fratelli d'Italia deputies to control their votes. It is a terrible and authoritarian way of managing electoral matters."
The government raises the question of trust on three articles of the Stabilicum or Melonellum, if you prefer, and the one denouncing yet another forcing of the majority in the Chamber is, among others, the dem Federico Fornaro. A necessary party game, of course, even if the transition was widely announced and even if the latest precedent, the trust placed in 2017 by the then PD-led government on the Rosatellum, is there to testify that the forcing is, so to speak, bipartisan. The fact is that the electoral reform chapter in Parliament is about to end: two votes of confidence on Tuesday, the third on Wednesday and the final vote on the text by secret ballot on Thursday for the final green light. A step now taken for granted by everyone, given Giorgia Meloni's "threat" of a rapid return to the polls in the event of a rejection in the secrecy of the ballot box.
There is no doubt that the definitive green light will officially open the long electoral campaign towards spring. An indirect signal is also the news that the prime minister has registered her voice at the EU trademark office to protect herself against possible multimedia manipulations made with artificial intelligence (see the news on the page). Because the date circled in red at Palazzo Chigi is election day with municipal elections in the big cities in May, ahead of the end of the legislature in September-October, as the Fratelli d'Italia group leader Lucio Malan made clear yesterday. Perhaps a little recklessly, given the determination of the League and Forza Italia to reach autumn 2027, hence the evening "correction" under the banner of "the legislature gets to the end": "The flaw for voting in September is that you have little time for the electoral campaign - is Malan's reasoning -. And then there is the budget law to be passed, which is a very delicate thing. So there might be a need to vote in May and it might make sense to vote together with the municipal elections."
What Malan doesn't say is that the new electoral law provides for a double-sided system, so to speak (the copyright belongs to the political scientist Roberto D'Alimonte, who first wrote about it in these columns): the majority premium triggers above 42% of the votes; but if no one reaches the fateful threshold the system becomes pure proportional First Republic style. And avoiding the provisional exercise is naturally also in the Quirinale's interest, given that a possible government of broad agreements or a national emergency between "enemy" parties in the electoral campaign would take a few months. A scenario, that of everyone below the 42% threshold, which at the moment does not appear so far-fetched, given that in the polls, with Roberto Vannacci's National Future at over 8%, the centre-right coalition is already wavering slightly below or slightly above.
While in the Democratic house, as well as among the Renzians who gathered over the weekend in Florence for the Leopolda, the suspicion arises that the president of the M5s Giuseppe Conte is preparing plan B of the possible escape route from the alliance, before or after the coalition primaries that the Democratic Party would like to hold at the beginning of the year. What is the point - one wonders - of raising the tone so much on the issue of "no more weapons to Ukraine" when the Democratic Party is in favor of full support like the entire family of European Socialists?
