The Renzi government did it: the Italicum is definitively law and after 9 years of Porcellum Italy finally has a new electoral law. A controversial law and the result of political compromise, as always happens when electoral laws are at stake, but still a turning point law that erases the opprobrium of Porcellum and promises political stability to the country with a reform that largely assigns voters the choice of who wins and who loses, who governs and who doesn't, which introduces the ballot between the two lists that have obtained the greatest consensus, the preferences for a part of the new deputies, gender equality and which, above all, avoids mess-ups and large understandings. On election night it will be clear who is the winner and who, consequently, will govern for 5 years.
334 deputies voted in favor of Italicum by secret ballot (a large part of the Pd, Ncd, Popular area and Centro
Democrat, Sc), against the Dem minority, on the Aventine Fi, Fdi, Lega Sel and M5S who did not participate in the vote in protest. The new law will come into force in July 2016.
To achieve the goal, Renzi did not look at anyone, going straight on his way after the profound changes suffered by the Italicum during its parliamentary process and brought home a result that strengthens the prime minister and the government and clarifies within the Democratic Party but above all it responds to the expectations of the country which for too many years has been unsuccessfully asking for a new electoral law.
Now the Prime Minister and secretary of the Democratic Party is stronger also in view of the regional elections at the end of the month but he will have to perform an authentic political miracle to carry forward the constitutional reform in the Senate, where he does not have a majority, but without whose approval the transformation of Palazzo Madama we would arrive at the paradox of voting in the next political elections with the Italicum in the Chamber and with the Consultellum in the Senate. It is no coincidence that Renzi has said he is willing to accept proposals for improvements to the reform of the Senate which guarantee a more effective balance of checks and balances in the delicate institutional balance between the two Chambers, but without starting all over again and avoiding useless and costly overlaps which have so far delayed the decision-making process of the Italian political system.
Renzi will then have to find new balances and new political and parliamentary consensus in order to carry forward his entire reformist plan, starting with the school reform which will be one of the most difficult test benches awaiting the Government against which the union strike will be launched tomorrow despite the next hiring of 100 new teachers that no government had ever achieved.
Apart from the prejudicial no of the oppositions, those who come out with broken bones from the battle of the Italicum are above all Forza Italia - which voted in favor of the law in the Senate and in the Chamber followed Berlusconi's about-face and Brunetta's hysteria arriving incredibly talk about authoritarian law and Renzist fascism - and the minority of the Democratic Party which, after being defeated countless times in internal bodies, has never respected the most elementary criteria of political loyalty and democracy (for which whoever has the most votes decides) saying say no to both the electoral law and trust in the government presided over by the same secretary of the Democratic Party but above all by never managing to convincingly support one's objections to the Italicum.
It seemed clear to many that Forza Italia and the Pd minority did not want to change the Italicum but aimed to bring down Renzi but they failed.
