In the Chamber on the part of the majority there is more than one fear about the secret vote given the precedent of July, when in the secrecy of the ballot box the Italian and Northern League snipers had scuttled the preferences with the blocked list leaders and then reintroduced them in the Senate. But the electoral reform developed by the center-right and opposed by the entire broad camp, Stabilicum or Melonellum whatever you prefer, arrives in the armored Chamber of Montecitorio. Indeed, very armored.
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The government has already raised the question of trust on the two articles of the law and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was clear: if in the two secret votes, the first on the preliminary ruling on constitutionality and the final one on the text, anyone wanted to play "jokes" they would go straight to the polls. And we would go to the polls with the current voting system, the Rosatellum, which for the centre-right would mean certain defeat or at most a draw and therefore a "swamp": the presence of Roberto Vannacci's National Future could in fact "give" the now united opponents even the single-member constituencies considered safe, overturning the 2022 result. And, above all, we would go back to voting before the first-appointed parliamentarians have acquired the right to pensions (the deadline is between the end of March and beginning of April 2027).
Full speed ahead, therefore, with the strategy of the useful vote to try to stem the rise of Roberto Vannacci's party ("if you vote for him, the left wins") in the hope of exceeding the threshold of 42% of the votes that triggers the majority bonus. Award which by will of the League - which thus hopes to compensate for the loss of the single-member constituencies of the Rosatellum in the North - is assigned not in percentage but through fixed coalition lists of 70 deputies and 35 senators up to a ceiling of 220 deputies and 113 senators (between 55 and 57% of the seats). But it's a gamble to be won for Meloni. Because the truth is that the reform was thought of before the explosion of the Vannacci phenomenon, with his National Future reaching over 8% in the polls, especially to the detriment of the League. With the consequence that the center-right is currently below the fateful threshold. The latest Ipsos poll by Nando Pagnoncelli speaks clearly: Vannacci's party is at 8.8% nationally, the League has fallen below 5% (4.7%) and the result is that the centre-right without Vannacci is at 39.4%.
But even the leaders of the broad camp, given 44.5% by Pagnoncelli, cannot sleep peacefully: the sum of Pd, M5s, Avs and Italia Viva is an arithmetic sum and not a political one. It is reasonable to imagine that at the time of the vote, some of the M5S voters would not vote for a coalition led by Schlein, taking refuge in abstention or protest voting, and on the other hand, some of the PD voters would move towards the Calendian center if Conte were to win the primaries instead. With the paradox of a law that the majority wanted to call Stabilicum in the name of certain results and therefore governability and which could instead lead to a "swamp" if both poles were to remain below 42%. But Meloni relies a lot on the useful vote, on his communication skills in the electoral campaign and above all on the divisions of his opponents: in short, a match can be played with the Stabilicum that would have been lost from the start with the Rosatellum.
The most important innovation, after the majority bonus, is not by chance the introduction of the obligation to indicate the prime minister candidate when filing the list and program labels, under penalty of inadmissibility of the lists. A rule strongly desired by Meloni to introduce a sort of small premiership after the "mother of all reforms", the Casellati bill on the direct election of the prime minister, was shelved following the victory of the No vote in the confirmatory referendum on justice. The indication of the head of the coalition already existed in the old Porcellum with which voting was held in 2006, 2008 and 2013, but there is no doubt that this time it throws havoc into the broad field and forces the leaders of the Pd and M5s Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte into potentially divisive and lacerating primaries for the premiership. Which is exactly Meloni's goal.
