The process for the approval of the new electoral law continues, but the Chamber rejects the amendment on preferences with a secret vote, the snipers being decisive. This is what the “stabilicum” provides.
We have entered the final rush for the first reading approval in the Chamber of the new electoral law which, in the government’s intentions, will have to replace the current Rosatellum and provide the winning coalition of the elections with a substantial majority bonus.
What does the electoral law under discussion provide?
The Stabilicum would radically redesign the architecture of the Italian vote. The clearest change concerns the abolition of single-member constituencies, which in the Rosatellum today assign around a third of the seats through a pure majority system.
The new text maintains only multi-member constituencies, with exceptions for Valle d’Aosta and Trentino-Alto Adige, and allocates all seats with a proportional method based on the votes obtained by the lists, calculated on a national basis for the Chamber and regionally for the Senate.
The heart of the reform remains the governability bonus: the coalition that exceeds 42% of the consensus (threshold raised from the initial 40%) receives 70 more seats in the Chamber and 35 in the Senate, with a ceiling that prevents it from exceeding approximately 60% of the total seats, so as not to compromise the election of the guarantee bodies.
The prize is triggered only if the same coalition wins in both houses of Parliament; in the case of different majorities, or if no one reaches the threshold, pure proportional distribution is applied.
Compared to the Rosatellum, which combines single-member constituencies and proportional representation without majority automatisms, the Stabilicum therefore introduces a certain bonus but linked to higher thresholds.
The threshold remains at 3%, with a “right to the gallery” for the lists which, despite not reaching it, obtain widespread support in several constituencies. Apart from the vote of Italians abroad, where the text introduces “anti-fraud” rules by delegating implementation details to the government, a point contested by the opposition.
The government stumbles on preferences
In the afternoon, one of the most divisive issues seemed to have been resolved: Forza Italia and Lega, initially against it, gave the green light to the amendment by Fratelli d’Italia, Noi Moderati and UDC which reintroduces a tempered form of preferences, with a blocked leader and the possibility of expressing up to three preferences over the other candidates.
Roberto Vannacci also announced a favorable vote, despite judging the measure insufficient compared to his proposal for full preferences.
Today in the Chamber, the Chamber rejected at the beginning the constitutionality preliminary rulings raised by the opposition, which speak of risks of unconstitutionality linked to the majority bonus and the blocked lists.
The Northern League amendment on the third mandate for regional governors was rejected as inadmissible because it was unrelated to electoral matters.
A sub-amendment by Avs, Pd and M5s which called for gender equality among the list leaders was also rejected, with 207 votes against and 155 in favour.
The twist came in the evening, when despite the declared support of Forza Italia, Lega and Futuro Nazionale, the amendment on preferences was rejected by just one vote, 188 against 187, thanks to the secret vote that made the “snipers” re-emerge.
The presidency of the Chamber had accepted the opposition’s request for a secret ballot on a hundred amendments, on articles 1, 2 and 3 and on the final vote, despite Meloni’s appeal to vote by open ballot.
The next steps
The majority’s objective remains approval in the House by the summer recess. The text will then pass to the Senate, where the process should resume in the autumn, with the ambition of reaching the final vote by mid-October.
Any changes by Palazzo Madama would cause the text to return to the Chamber for further reading, extending the time. However, the government aims to close the process by the end of 2026, to avoid approving the law in the same year as the elections scheduled for 2027, a hypothesis that the Quirinale has made it clear that it does not like.
