Italian parliament gives final green light to electoral reform
Xinhua, May 5, 2015 Adjust font size:
The Italian Lower House on Monday definitively approved a new electoral law, which was seen as a keystone of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's reform agenda.
The new legislation will grant 55 percent of seats in parliament to the winning party in future elections, thus making it easier to produce a stable political majority.
"We have kept our commitment, the promise has been fulfilled," Renzi wrote on his twitter account, soon after the vote.
The final approval from the Lower House came through a secret ballot after a daylong tense debate, and the bill was passed with 334 votes in favor, and 61 votes against.
Major opposition forces left the assembly and did not take part in the voting, including Silvio Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia (FI) party, anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), and the Northern League party.
Last week, Renzi decided to impose three separate confidence votes on the bill to prevent further amendments on the text, which the Parliament had been discussing since March 2014. Endit