Senate gives final approval to electoral law reform
With 113 votes in favour, the Senate chamber approved the text reintroducing preferential votes; it now moves to the Chamber of Deputies for a third reading.
This morning’s edition did not cover the Italy section: in the early afternoon comes a decision that closes a passage that had been awaited for days. The Senate chamber approved the electoral law reform sought by the centre-right with 113 votes in favour, 71 against and 2 abstentions (AGI; Open).
The approved text introduces up to three preferential votes with gender alternation, while keeping locked list leaders in place. The 60-40 gender quota on list leaders provided for by the Rosatellum, the electoral system that the reform is set to replace, is instead dropped. The combination of preferential votes and locked list leaders has remained the focus of parliamentary debate in recent weeks, along with the choice to do away with the fixed quota on list leaders that had been introduced at the time to guarantee minimum gender representation on the lists.
The process is not over: the reform will return to the Chamber of Deputies for the third and final reading, scheduled for September 28. Only after that vote can the text be considered final, and until then it formally remains a proposal approved by only one chamber of Parliament in its current version.
Among the comments gathered in the chamber, Italia Viva senator Matteo Renzi summed up the dynamic between the two chambers of Parliament in one remark:
“God willing, we’ve rediscovered bipolarism, between the Chamber and the Senate.” — Matteo Renzi, Italia Viva senator
What we don’t know
It is not yet clear whether the text will arrive at the Chamber of Deputies locked in or whether new amendments will be tabled in the third reading: the available sources indicate only the September 28 date as the deadline on the calendar, without details on the floor procedure at Montecitorio. It is also not specified whether the majority that backed the text in the Senate corresponds exactly to the alignments expected in the Chamber of Deputies.
The next dated appointment thus remains the vote in the Chamber of Deputies on September 28.
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