The Italicum "can be changed", even regardless of the pronouncement of the Constitutional Court on 4 October. It is the new line of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi who is willing to modify the electoral law in order to save the victory of the YES in the constitutional referendum.
“You don't like Italicum? And what's the problem? Let's discuss it, let's go deeper, but let's make a better electoral law than this one. My true, sincere openness. However, we will never accept a worse electoral law than this one”. Renzi, therefore, opens up on the Italicum but on two conditions: that a majority is formed in Parliament that supports the revision of the electoral law without messing around and that the result produces a better law. Two conditions that are difficult to meet beyond the premier's overtures.
It's quick to criticize the Italicum but when it comes to gathering a majority from the Parliament on the changes, the road immediately becomes uphill. There are those who would like to replace the majority prize for the winning party with the prize for the winning coalition, but in this case Brancaleone armies will not reform as in the time of Prodi's Ulivo which in fact, despite having won two elections against Berlusconi, was sniped first by Bertinotti and then by Mastella, two well-known phenomena and fortunately meteors of Italian politics?
And there are those who, on the other hand, would like to eliminate the ballot to avoid a national replica of the Turin case, where the right and the extreme left united against the Democratic Party, which had won in the first round, opening the doors wide to the grillini. But, in this case, isn't there the risk of favoring representativeness over governance?
The games are on and we will see if we can really find a satisfactory solution. But the President Emeritus of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, is now also pushing for a modification of the Italicum, who has taken the lead with an extensive interview in "la Repubblica" to ask, above all the minority of the Democratic Party, that the war on the referendum and the constitutional reform is approved, and to urge Renzi to take an initiative to change the Italicum by abolishing the ballot.
"With what is happening in the world and what Italy has on its shoulders - the former Head of State passionately argues - the raging war on the constitutional referendum is truly surreal: there is no respite, there is no broad vision, a long gaze is lacking and above all the sense of responsibility is lacking”.
Napolitano criticizes Renzi's initial personalization of the referendum but then dismantles, one after the other, the objections of the opposition, internal and external to the Democratic Party, to the constitutional reform, and urges the prime minister to take the initiative to revise the Italicum, suggesting the abolition of the ballot, "which immediately gives us the certainty of who will govern but presents many weaknesses for the effective governance of the country, as what is happening in France tells us".
