Chamber of Deputies gives final approval to new electoral law

The Chamber of Deputies has given final approval to the electoral law reform with 227 votes in favour and 164 against, in a secret ballot. The text, nicknamed Stabilicum or Melonellum, reintroduces citizens’ preferential votes combined with blocked lead candidates on party lists, as reported by Today.it and Sky TG24.

The vote comes at the end of a parliamentary process marked by tensions over the stability of the majority. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had said, before the approval, that a failure to pass the reform would have brought down the government. After the vote, Meloni described as “surreal” the debate over the date of the next general election, which has been speculated to take place in May or June.

“United centre-right” — Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister

The secret ballot mechanism, used for the final vote, made the outcome less predictable until the very end, in a context that the government had described as decisive for its own stability. The reintroduction of preferential voting changes the way voters will be able to choose their representatives compared with the previous system, while still retaining the blocked lead candidate mechanism for a portion of the seats.

On the eve of the vote, the spread between ten-year BTPs and German Bunds rose to 112 points, a movement that markets observed during the hours in which the parliamentary outcome of the reform was being decided. The figure places the tension on Italian government bonds within a broader context of observation by investors in the days surrounding the approval.

The open question now concerns the timing of the next general election: no official date has been set, but the window indicated by Meloni — May or June — remains the reference point against which the political debate will be measured in the coming weeks. The text approved by the Chamber of Deputies nonetheless concludes the legislative process of the reform, which the government has described as a condition for its own stability.