The history of electoral reform in ‘modern’ Italy starts with a bang. Or rather, with blood. “The Honorable Ruini was injured in the head as a result of being thrown at a tablet by a far-left group,” we read in the minutes of the Senate hearing on the ‘law of fraud’, a reform sought by Alcide De Gasperi in ’53 and was approved with difficulty amidst unrest in the assembly and in the streets. A warning, unheard of in the years to come, about efforts being made to change the voting system. And also a little about the political price that those who want it usually pay.
The rigged law, created to guarantee full DC government, did not give Crusader Shield the desired majority bonus, stopping at 49.85% in the 1953 election. The reform lasted for a year, and was hastily abolished in 1954. “The will of the people has triumphed!”, ran a L’Unità headline. From then on, the most important thing was to compare, study and negotiate between the Italian parties to find and agree on the perfect electoral system, the Cup of Power. Until now, Giorgia Meloni and Elly Schlein have been described as forging another agreement to reform the system.
After deducting the legal brackets for fraud, pure proportional long season (and power is in the hands of the parties) in democratic Italy, the law was discontinued in ’93, with a bill that boasted an extraordinary speaker: Sergio Mattarella. After the referendum and the ‘minotaur’ (mixed system) that had been created, Mattarellum was approved without confidence by a cross-party coalition. Does everyone like it? No. “This betrays the spirit of the referendum”, said Marco Pannella, who, as usual, an opponent, voted no.
The novelty of Mattarellum is a 75% majority of seats, with one round in single-member constituencies, the rest are proportional. The idea behind this law is to encourage bipolarity. In fact, it features two stars of the genre, Silvio Berlusconi and Romano Prodi, who dominated the period.
Mattarellum remained in place until 2005 when it was replaced by Porcellum. Fi, An, Udc and Lega chose it. Not a Union. The reforms developed by Northern League member Roberto Calderoli were based on Silvio Berlusconi’s ‘allergy’ to constituencies, which Cavaliere considered too easy terrain for “left-wing” candidates to conquer. So we return to proportional representation with majority bonuses and no preferences. Porcellum provides a history of the very narrow majority in the Senate, which was formed on a regional basis.
Like the vote of 158 to 156 for the Union after the 2006 vote marked by the ‘exploitation’ of Senator Luigi Pallaro. Porcellum, which has an equal number of admirers and detractors, is finally in the spotlight Constitutional Court, which declared it partially unconstitutional in 2013. So we come to Italicum, which was developed in the middle of the era of Matteo Renzi, who was then prime minister. The ‘scrapper’ plan, in terms of theme, is very ambitious. The electoral system, a proportional system with a threshold of 3% and a bonus of 40%, is set only for the DPR. The Senate, in Renzi’s project, should become a second-tier chamber. If not worse.
From this moment on, the story becomes famous. The referendum destroyed Renzi’s reforms (and also his stay at the Palazzo Chigi), but in the meantime the electoral law had been approved. With the Senate he remained disconnected. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court also stated that it would stop using the letters Italicum. In short, things have to change.
Then we come to ‘Rosatellum’, a hybrid system that most people agree with in 2017 but with little effort. (and some trusts). And once again, warnings are always rarely heeded. This reform was opposed by the M5 group, which considered that this reform was made specifically for the center-right and center-left coalition and was very inconvenient for those who did not want to know about the coalition. And who, soon after, will take up government office? Good luck to Meloni and Schlein.
