Veneto Region: premierate and electoral law in the tug-of-war between Fdi and Lega

Said and done. Full steam ahead with the separation of careers, which will be in the Chamber of Montecitorio as early as today, 16 September, after the azure president of the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies Nazario Pagano will have voted the mandate to the rapporteurs: the goal is a yes vote within the week. This is the first of the two 'conforming readings' envisaged. The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate (the latter by the end of the year), after the first two go-ahead votes in January and July 2025, must in fact vote yes or no without the possibility of amendments, and as early as June 2026 the confirmatory referendum envisaged for constitutional amendments approved with less than two-thirds of the votes will be held.

On the other hand, justice reform is the only one that all centre-right parties and, according to polls, even the majority of Italians agree on. But the novelty of the Capigruppo that on 10 September set the agenda for parliamentary work after the summer break is the appearance, or rather the reappearance, of the 'mother of all reforms' dear to Giorgia Meloni, namely that Ddl Casellati for the direct election of the premier and the strengthening of his powers, which had been approved in June 2024 by the Senate and had then ended up on a narrow-gauge track: after its long slumber, the premierate popped up on the November Chamber calendar.

Of course, there is no precise date and the deadline may be moved, since Meloni has already decided that the confirmatory referendum on the premier will be held after the next general elections in 2027, but the appearance on the Chamber calendar is a sign that something is moving on the front of the changes that, according to everyone in the majority, will have to be made to the Casellati text that came out of Palazzo Madama. There are two points under the lens: the system for electing the prime minister and the weight of voters abroad, whose vote in the case of direct elections would count for 'heads' and could no longer flow into the special constituencies that elect 4 senators and 8 deputies. On this last point, consideration is being given to providing for an equalisation mechanism in the Constitution so that the 5 million voters abroad can cast their votes without risking overturning the result at home. As for the electoral system, Casellati's bill states that 'the law shall regulate the electoral system of the Chambers according to the principles of representativeness and governability and in such a way that a prize, assigned on a national basis, guarantees 55 per cent of the seats in each of the two Chambers to the lists and candidates linked to the Prime Minister'. But given that the Constitutional Court, in rejecting the Porcellum in 2014 and the Italicum in 2017, established the principle that the prize must be reasonable and not exceed 15 per cent, a threshold of at least 40 per cent to trigger it will have to be provided for. And given also that the only way to 'guarantee' a majority is to provide for a runoff if no one reaches 40% and that the runoff has always been opposed by the League, the word 'guarantee' in Casellati's text should be replaced with 'favour'.

So far the changes to be made to the constitutional reform. However, the hypothesis of changing the Rosatellum is now on the table, while waiting for the premierate to be approved by the Italians in the next legislature, by designing a 'dress' that could then fit, with the necessary modifications, also for the direct election envisaged by the Casellati bill: reopening the file on the changes to the constitutional reform means in fact also opening up the debate in the majority on electoral reform. The scheme on the table at Palazzo Chigi since January is that of overcoming the lottery of single-member constituencies (37% of the total) by adopting a proportional system with a majority prize of 55% of the seats for the coalition that exceeds 40% of the votes and with indication of the name of the premier candidate on the ballot paper: a sure winner (only one more vote is needed) and direct choice of the premier by the voters even in the absence of the premierate. With the current electoral law, in fact, the risk for Meloni is that of a non-win: in 2022 the oppositions went to the polls even divided into three and this is the main reason for the clear victory of the centre-right with the conquest of 80% of the uninominal constituencies.

Well, on this front the greatest resistance to the Melonian project has come and is coming, once again, from the League. Resigned to abandoning the uninominal constituencies that exalt the specific weight of the party in the North with an over-representation in Parliament, the Lega members are then worried about another possible effect: with the indication of the name of the premier (i.e. Meloni) on the ballot paper there is a possible drain of votes within the coalition in favour of Fratelli d'Italia (someone has calculated a possible drain of 700-800 thousand votes). The latter effect is also worrying for Forza Italia: it is no coincidence that in the past few hours the vice-premier and leader of Forza Italia Antonio Tajani has publicly expressed his perplexity ("each party should be able to indicate its candidate to lead the government, then it is clear that it will be the party of the coalition that will take the most votes to express the premier").