Italian parliament fails to support Giorgi Meloni's electoral reform

The Italian parliament on Tuesday rejected a key part of an electoral reform proposed by Prime Minister Giorgi Meloni's party, dealing her a significant blow ahead of next year's elections.

The lower house of parliament has been discussing electoral reform that would introduce a fully proportional electoral system with bonus seats for the winning coalition.

Although Italy has a historical problem of unstable governments and needs sources to produce a clear winner who could implement his program, MPs rejected in a secret ballot a proposal by the Brothers of Italy party to reintroduce preferential voting for candidates on party lists.

The prime minister's main coalition partners, the League and Forza Italia parties, said they would support the reform, but 188 MPs opposed it, while 187 voted for it, indicating that part of the ruling majority voted against it, Hina reports.

The left-wing opposition accused Meloni of trying to change electoral rules ahead of next year's elections in an attempt to retain power.

Opposition groups welcomed the result and said it showed Meloni no longer had full control of her parliamentary majority, with some calling for her to resign.

What did Meloni suggest?

The Đorđe Meloni coalition proposed a move to a fully proportional system, but with a “majority bonus.” This means that parties would receive mandates based mainly on their percentage of votes; but if a coalition wins enough votes (42 percent in the proposal), it would receive additional mandates to have a stable majority in parliament.

For example, the prime minister's coalition wins 43 percent of the vote. Instead of getting approximately 43 percent of the seats in parliament, it would receive additional mandates and could have about 55–60 percent of the seats.