La reform of reforms. This is how the Minister of Institutional Reforms Elisabetta Casellati defined the bill she intends modify the Constitution carrying forward the electoral promises made last year by the centre-right parties. Of course, the Government has moved from presidentialism to premiership, but the substance does not change. During summit on Monday the majority found a consensus on the constitutional bill which will arrive in the Council of Ministers on Friday with the government's aim of having the reform approved by both Chambers, in the first reading, by the European elections. Within it, in addition to the direct election of the prime minister, we also find the now famous anti-reversal rule, the stop to technical governments and farewell to senators for life.
The agreement has in fact translated into a draft text consisting of five articles and open to modifications until Friday. Here's what it predicts.
Direct election of the prime minister
The latest draft of the bill circulated in the latest works modifies three articles of the Constitution: 88 on the power of the head of state to dissolve the Chambers, 92 on the appointment of the prime minister and 94 on the motion of confidence and no confidence in the government. Simply put, if the project passes, the Prime Minister will be andread by universal and direct suffrage for five years and will be the expression of one or more connected lists.
Electoral law with majority premium
The draft also provides a majoritarian electoral system with a 55% majority bonus assigned on a national basis which would ensure 55% of the seats in the Chambers for candidates and lists linked to the elected prime minister candidate. The text only speaks of an electoral law that guarantees "representativeness and governability", but does not currently indicate a minimum threshold.
The powers of the President of the Republic
According to the draft, the President of the Republic would no longer be the one to appoint the Prime Minister, as happens today on the basis of article 92. The Head of State would only have the task of confer the task to the elected prime minister. The Quirinale would instead retain the power of appointment of ministers, upon indication of the head of government.
Once the ministers have been appointed and appointed, the Prime Minister will go to the Chambers to ask for the trust: he will have two possibilities. If he doesn't get trust the first time he can try to ask for it a second time. Faced with a double failure, the Head of State will dissolve the Chambers. The reform, however, eliminates the possibility for the President of the Republic to dissolve only one of the two branches of Parliament.
Anti-tipping rule
If the Prime Minister resigns or lapses from his role, the President of the Republic can assign the task of forming a new government to the resigning Prime Minister or to a another parliamentarian connected to the Prime Minister “to implement the declarations relating to the political direction and programmatic commitments on which the Government of the President-elect has asked for the confidence of the Chambers”. It will therefore not be possible to name "technical governments” or external prime ministers to Parliament like Mario Monti, Matteo Renzi, Giuseppe Conte or Mario Draghi were.
Goodbye to senators for life
The President of the Republic will no longer have the possibility to appoint senators for life. The current senators will remain in office.
The reaction of the oppositions
In an interview given to Repubblica, the senator Alessandro Alfieri, reform manager of the Democratic Party states that “We are in the presence of a complex mess of rules that undermines the parliamentary Republic and serves as a weapon of mass distraction to divert attention and cover up the lack of answers to the economic and social problems of the country. A typical Italian solution which, in addition to upsetting the balance between prime minister and head of state desired by the Constitution, does not address what is the real institutional emergency: the abuse of the emergency decree, implemented by the government, which empties the prerogatives of Parliament".
The leader of the M5S is also critical Giuseppe Conte, according to which "Due to the question of one man alone in command, due to the ideological question, the government wants to overturn the constitutional structure, and I am convinced that the direct election of the prime minister, with the premiership which does not exist and where it has been realized has created disasters, be the solution. Does the fact that someone is elected guarantee stability? If he starts making a mess, after a month he falls out of favor. To ensure this, among other things, they want to create a mechanism to weaken Parliament, which is under blackmail, with the prerogatives of the head of state halved. Can we sit at a table with those who propose such adventurism?”.
The only voice out of the chorus of "no" with which the opposition forces reject the government's draft constitutional reform is Matteo Renzi who states: "If Meloni brings constitutional reform with the direct election of the prime minister, we are there."
