Italiens Wahlrecht

ITALY’S constitutional court has fired the starting pistol for the next general election. On January 25th the judges struck down key provisions of the electoral law for the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, as unconstitutional. In doing so, they have increased the likelihood of an early election. But how long will the race last?

That depends on whether the president, Sergio Mattarella, decides to push parliament to adopt a new system or make do with the current legal mess.
The constitutional wrangle has its origins in the failed attempt by the former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, to engineer stable majorities in a country that has known 66 governments since 1945. There were two pillars to his scheme. One was to reduce the powers of the Senate, the powerful upper house, by turning it into an indirectly elected assembly of regional and municipal appointees. The other was to introduce a new electoral law for the lower house in 2015. Known as the Italicum, it gave the party that won more than 40% of the vote a generous portion of extra seats to ensure it controlled 54% of parliament. If no party reached the threshold, a run-off ballot would be held and the bonus seats would go to the winner.

Italian voters smashed the first pillar in a referendum last December. Now the second has been destroyed by the constitutional court. The judges abolished the provision for a run-off ballot (the reasons will be set out in a forthcoming written judgement). They raised no objection to the bonus seats but the chances of any party securing them in Italy’s fragmented party system are remote.
The ruling means that, should elections be held under the Italicum, as modified by the court, the outcome is likely to be indecisive—leading to tortuous negotiations and an unsteady coalition of incompatible parties.

The ruling is a bittersweet outcome for Mr Renzi, who stepped down as prime minister but remains leader of the centre-left Democratic Party. His plan for wholesale constitutional reform has been repudiated by both the electorate and the judiciary. But in amending the law, rather than striking it off entirely, the court ensured that it could be used for an early election, perhaps before the summer.
That has given a boost to Mr Renzi and others who are agitating for elections as soon as possible. Despite his humiliation in the referendum, Mr Renzi is hoping that he can preserve momentum from his time in office to retain control of the party, and regain the leadership of the country. He thus makes for an odd bedfellow of Beppe Grillo, the leader of the main opposition group, the populist Five Star Movement; and of Matteo Salvini, who leads the radical-right Northern League.

Strong forces are pulling in the opposite direction. Silvio Berlusconi, the head of Forza Italia, needs to buy time: he hopes to wrest back the leadership of the right-wing camp from Mr Salvini and is waiting for the outcome of an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against his conviction for tax fraud. If upheld, it would allow him to run again for office. There are more venal motives, too: if the parliament is dissolved before September, almost two-thirds of the deputies and senators (those who entered parliament at the last election in 2013) will lose their right to a pension. Parliament could yet limp on to the end of its term in 2018.
The last word will rest with Mr Mattarella. He wants the electoral laws for the Senate and Chamber to be harmonised to avoid the risk of gridlock if different majorities control the assemblies. The modified Italicum now more closely resembles the law for the Senate, though differences remain. Faced with the impatience of the three biggest parties, the president may not be able to hold out for long.    The Economist