Electoral reform

D’Alema criticises the Stabilicum: ‘It doesn’t take voter apathy into account’

According to the former prime minister, the electoral reform bill proposed by the government allocates a number of seats that is out of proportion to the actual level of public support

by Pietro Menzani

10 June 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

Criticism of the Stabilicum

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

‘From a democratic point of view, if a political party is awarded 55% of the seats with 42% of the vote, in a system where 50% of the electorate votes, the level of genuine support required by this law is extremely low.’ On the occasion of the launch of the book “The story of a reform that never came to be. Forty years of futile attempts to renew the institutions” by the reformist politician Peppino Calderisi, former Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema harshly criticised the electoral reform proposal put forward by the majority, the Stabilicum.

Criticism of the Stabilicum

At the launch event for Claderisi’s book, held in Rome, in the Zuccari Room of Palazzo Giustiniani, in addition to the author himself and D’Alema, the former Minister for Constitutional Reforms in the Letta government, Gaetano Quagliariello, and the constitutional expert and lecturer at the University of Rome La Sapienza, Francesco Clementi, also spoke. The proceedings were introduced by Marcello Pera, chairman of the Senate’s Library and Historical Archives Committee.

“We need to consider the fact that a majority bonus,” continued D’Alema, “should only be triggered once a certain threshold of eligible voters has been reached, not of those who actually cast a vote. In order to secure the power provided for by the Stabilicum, there should be a minimum threshold of citizens expressing support” for a political party.

D’Alema’s proposal

According to the former prime minister, who chaired a bicameral commission set up in 1997 to review the second part of the Constitution, ‘it should be stated that a party cannot take control of the institutions unless it secures at least 30% of the votes cast by eligible Italian voters. Below this threshold, it is up to Parliament to form the government and alliances, as happens in many democratic countries: in Germany, after the vote, it takes two months to form the government”.

D’Alema concluded that ‘either there is a minimum level of consensus that makes it acceptable to hand all power to one party, or, in my view, it is even risky to do so. And when I say consensus, I am referring to the consensus of Italian citizens, not merely to the consensus of those who actually vote’.

In the former prime minister’s view, ‘fundamental parts of the Constitution cannot be reformed without a compromise in which both sides emerge as losers. For this reason, the Bicameral Commission’s attempt was the only serious reform project in our country. Let us look at the current electoral bill: today we are witnessing a gradual erosion of democratic participation, and a bill is being proposed that risks allowing political forces supported by just 18 per cent of the active electorate to govern through the majority bonus.”

Quagliarello added that ‘the history of our Republic has been strengthened by a compromise: this was the Constitution, as the Founding Fathers explain to us. I recognise the difficulties facing democracies today, which should lead us towards less radicalisation and greater moderation. However, I believe that this crisis tells us that there is still work to be done at the constitutional level.”

The work of Calderisi

Calderisi’s book, published by Rubbettino Editore and featuring a foreword by Augusto Barbera, traces the successive attempts to reform Italian institutions over the last forty years. The work reconstructs the history of proposals to revise the Republican Constitution, ranging from bicameral commissions, referendums, electoral laws and political pacts, which, ultimately, according to the author, have failed to bring about a genuine modernisation of the state.

The book begins with an analysis of the electoral referendums of the 1990s, moving on to the reform promoted by Matteo Renzi and rejected in the 2016 referendum, and touching on the bicameral commission chaired by D’Alema. The book offers food for thought on the political events of a country which, in Calderisi’s view, has not yet proved capable of untangling the knots surrounding the form of government, perfect bicameralism and the relationship between the State and the regions.