Electoral law in Parliament: tensions in the center-right and approval of the amendment on preferences

The path of the electoral law continues in Parliament, albeit with some shakeups in the majority. On Thursday the centre-right rejected the opposition's amendments on pure preferences and approved its own unitary amendment on the matter, which also provides for blocked list leaders and the possibility of expressing up to three preferences with gender alternation on the six pre-printed names. But before this, the day was marked by tensions linked to the fact that Brothers of Italy would have considered, at least for a few hours, supporting the opposition's proposal on pure preferences. And the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni claims: "The preferences return to FdI's proposal, the left is not credible".

Tensions and the majority meeting

It is Thursday morning when the news is constantly circulating in Transatlantic that FdI is evaluating the opposition amendments on the preferences, a scenario confirmed in some way by the undersecretary Alberto Balboni according to whom "the sub-amendment is a provocation, but the issue is there and I would not be against solutions that broaden" the preferences. But Lega and Forza Italia do not agree: either we vote unitedly on the amendment on which there is an agreement or the entire law is thrown out. At that point a majority meeting was called with Minister Casellati, the center-right group leaders and the Sherpas, during which FdI clearly warned: "Either this electoral law passes or we go to vote immediately, even in November". "We vote for the law but as we agreed upon it", Carroccio and FI would have replied, forming a wall and in turn threatening stiffening of other dossiers. Then the divisions are resolved and the majority makes it known that it will vote unitedly against the opposition's amendments. Meloni's objective, the prime minister's loyalists explain, was to guarantee the compactness of the coalition so that the allies "committed not to play pranks in the Chamber". The third and definitive move to Montecitorio in fact raises some concerns, so much so that the choice to raise the question of trust is still being evaluated. Instead of several secret ballots, there would be just one but a potentially devastating one if the government were to go under.

The issues of the new electoral election

If tensions over preferences have subsided, there is no shortage of other issues to address. Among these are gender quotas: the amendment approved by the government blows up the quotas foreseen for the list leaders in the Rosatellum. A topic that, in the past, had seen protests from several parliamentarians, even from the majority. And again the theme included in the law to cancel the 'anti-bushes' law (with the elimination of any threshold of votes to contribute to the prize) which provides for a marked increase in signatures for those entering Parliament for the first time.