News Analysis: Party rifts to give Italian PM hard time?

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi continues to carry on with his reform agenda but has to look over his shoulder for troubles within his own ruling Democratic Party (PD).

A new electoral law pushed by Renzi and seen as a keystone of his center-left government was definitively approved earlier this week after he called three confidence votes to prevent further amendments on the text.

The new legislation, believed to make it easier to produce a stable political majority by granting 55 percent of seats in parliament to the winning party, was obstructed by opposition forces including former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia (FI) and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S).

But what was noteworthy was the fact fierce opposition came from within PD of which Renzi is the leader, with around 40 lawmakers including prominent ones voting against the reform and voicing their protests to the use of the confidence vote in a tense debate.

The peak of PD's internal controversy came when one of its founders and former whip for the Lower House, Pippo Civati, quit the party after the vote, saying he envisaged a new governing left.

"I no longer feel I can vote my confidence in the Renzi government ... we will build a party able to sway the millions who prefer to put up with things in company," he said.

Though the split does not pose an immediate risk to stability of the government, whose popularity among Italians is 29 percent according to a weekly poll released on Friday, it should not be taken lightly as could be a sign of malaise, according to local observers.

"Civati's farewell does not impact the government in the short term. But should other PD members follow in his footsteps, Renzi could have problems with the constitutional reform that parliament is also discussing," Marco Damilano, a political columnist of l'Espresso news weekly, told Xinhua.

The bill, also among Renzi's priorities, is aimed at demoting the Senate into a non-elected assembly and stripping it of its current equal legislative status with the Lower House to make Italy's slow-moving political system more functional.

Renzi has said he aims at reaching the natural end of the legislature in 2018 but Damilano sees new elections in autumn of 2016, when the new electoral law will be in effect, as likely. "The Senate reform, however, will be decisive. Should it not succeed, this could trigger the legislature to end even earlier in the next months, and Civati has sound an alarm bell," Damilano explained to Xinhua.

But what has caused the PD internal rifts?

"After Renzi took power in February 2014, it became immediately clear that he would be a decision maker," Damilano said. He added Renzi's collaboration with Berlusconi on certain issues and center-leaning policies have pushed a part of PD more toward the left. "I think there is space there for a new party, though it will take time," he said.

Jacopo Iacoboni, a political commentator at La Stampa newspaper, thinks that in order to pose a real risk to Renzi, the new formation should not be built by putting together the most leftist fringes of PD. "Yes, there is space for a new party, but only if aimed at doing what Renzi has not been able to do," Iacoboni told Xinhua.

In his view, there is a consistent number of PD electors disappointed by the prime minister's inability to fulfill his promises.

For example, Iacoboni noted, Renzi had said he wanted to rise to power through elections, but was sworn in after a dramatic back room power struggle in PD. "And the fact that the electoral reform as well as other key changes in the Italian democracy were approved without the normal assessment that accompanies most bills negotiated in parliament was also unacceptable for many," he added.

"If Civati shows to be able to deal with crucial social issues and to have a sense of coherence, he could give Renzi a hard time. But political processes take a long time, do not expect a revolution from one day to the next," Iacoboni underlined. Endit