Interview: Early vote in Italy more likely, after constitutional court revises electoral law

An early vote in Italy would be more likely, after the country's constitutional court revised parts of the electoral law earlier this week, an Italian political analyst said.

"The constitutional court has largely acknowledged the legitimacy of so-called "Italicum" electoral system, which applies to the lower house," Sergio Fabbrini, director of the School of Government at LUISS University in Rome, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

In a written ruling on Jan. 25, the highest court said the runoff in national elections provided by such law is unlawful with respect to the country's constitution.

Fabbrini, who is also a professor of political science and international relations with LUISS, suggested this revision was due to the fact that no such mechanism was provided for the upper house, or the senate, whose election conforms to a different law.

The constitutional judges also declared invalid a provision allowing top candidates to pick up a constituency to represent at their own choice, in case they have run in more electoral colleges.

However, they agreed with a key section of the law providing a 54 percent majority of seats in the lower house to the party winning at least 40 percent of votes. If no one reaches such threshold,

The electoral mechanism would remain proportional.

"The court confirmed the legitimacy of the majority prize for the party reaching the 40 percent threshold, as well as of the chance for top candidates to run in more than one constituency," the analyst pointed out.

As such, the main framework of the law remained untouched. Under this point of view, the ruling would mark a victory for former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his center-left Democratic Party (PD), which promoted the approval of the law in 2015, according to Fabbrini.

Those who claimed the "Italicum" would damage democracy for giving too much power to the winning party -- including some respected constitutionalists in the country -- were proved wrong.

"From this perspective, Renzi comes out well, and the same goes for his efforts to make the Italian electoral system more rational," the analyst told Xinhua.

On Wednesday, the court did not explain the reasons behind its decision, but a report with the motivation of the ruling is expected within 30 days.

Yet, the highest judges stated the law so amended would be "susceptible of immediate application." These words prompted new calls for holding general elections in spring or early summer 2017, ahead of the end of the legislature in Feb. 2018.

After suffering a harsh defeat in a referendum on a constitutional reform largely rejected by voters on Dec. 4 last year, Renzi resigned as prime minister. PD's close ally Paolo Gentiloni took the post in mid-December, forming a new cabinet with more or less the same center-left majority.

Since then, most political forces have pressed for early elections, including Renzi's own PD, which is actually the largest force in parliament.

On the other hand, Italian President Sergio Mattarella and other key institutional figures were appealing for the two electoral systems to be "harmonized", before any new election.

According to Fabbrini, the constitutional court's ruling has made the latter option less likely.

"Now, Renzi's PD has an electoral system that can be overall applied, and all efforts to bring this legislature to its natural end in 2018 have lost much room," the professor said.

"Either all parties in parliament agree in a short time on a new law ruling both chambers' election, or the current parliament can be dissolved."

"An early vote becomes more likely also because the two electoral laws (for lower house and upper house) are not homogeneous, yet comparable," he explained.

In fact, the senate's electoral law provides a proportional system, with thresholds of 8 percent of the votes for any party running alone, and 20 percent for coalitions. No majority prize is provided.

Overall, however, Fabbrini said the recent political developments were not likely to make the Italian governing system more stable.

"The risk of political instability remains very high. The rejection of the constitutional reform -- which would have demoted the senate into a non-elected chamber -- will make Italy pay a very high prize from this point of view."

"It was a chance to stabilize the government system, and it was lost," he said. Endit