Provinces: the Government reinstates direct elections for provincial presidents

After years of debate, during which almost all political parties expressed their agreement without, however, taking any concrete action, the Government has set out in writing its plan to reinstate the direct election of provincial presidents and councillors. It is doing so as part of the reform of the Consolidated Act on Local Authorities, which has been drawn up ahead of one of the forthcoming meetings of the Council of Ministers.

The reform is taking shape following a standstill of over three years after the preliminary review in August 2023. Compared with that version, the draft bill has been significantly expanded. However, it is coming up for approval in the final stretch of the parliamentary term: a detail that should not be overlooked for an enabling act, which, once given final approval, would give the Government 12 months to carry out a comprehensive review of the legal frameworks governing local authorities.

The move, therefore, is first and foremost a political signal. It overcomes the many hesitations on the issue to respond to what is essentially a united call from the political parties, whose provincial administrators – who are, first and foremost, mayors – have long complained about the unmanageable stalemate in which the provinces have been left since, ten years ago now, the reform aimed at abolishing them foundered on the ‘no’ vote in the 2016 referendum. It is the ‘limbo’ that the Head of State, Sergio Mattarella, spoke of again in early October at the UPI national assembly in Imperia, calling on the Government and Parliament to intervene to restore the large-area authorities to a position where they can provide services to their citizens. The submission of the draft legislation to the Council of Ministers addresses this need: although, in all likelihood, it will be the next parliamentary term that will have to complete the task.

The centrepiece of the reform, set to reignite the debate on the ‘costs of politics’, is precisely the return to direct elections by universal suffrage for provincial presidents and councillors, with the consequent return of provincial councillors to the political arena. The reform would do away with the second-tier vote that currently brings local administrators to the polls. The bill also sets out the electoral mechanism, based on multi-member constituency lists governed by gender equality safeguards. It also provides for the avoidance of a run-off when a candidate exceeds the 40 per cent threshold of the vote, a result which would be accompanied by a majority bonus awarding the winning coalition 60 per cent of the seats on the council. In this way, the reform revives the threshold – previously envisaged for municipalities with over 15,000 inhabitants in the centre-right’s draft bill (the first signatories are Lucio Malan of FdI, Maurizio Gasparri of Fi, Massimiliano Romeo of the Lega and Micaela Biancofiore of Noi Moderati), which is struggling to gain traction in the Senate. In this regard, the delegation also calls for the harmonisation of electoral rules for mayors.

In the view of provincial administrators, the return to direct elections must be accompanied by a strengthening of provincial functions, not least to prevent the debate from becoming bogged down once again in fruitless discussions about posts and the associated allowances. The decree addresses this, albeit in more general terms, by providing for a reorganisation of the core functions of municipalities, provinces and metropolitan cities. The principle stipulates that each level of government should be assigned only those activities ‘related to meeting the basic needs of the communities concerned’, based on criteria of adequacy measured against the size of each type of local authority. In this reorganisation, the text specifies, the provinces are to be assigned ‘all functions requiring supra-municipal exercise’, starting with those currently assigned to the complex web of local bodies and authorities: structures that have multiplied over the years, even though they are often invisible to the public.