How a new electoral law could shape the 2018 Italian elections

Dario Quattromani - Adjunct Professor in Political Science, Tuscia University of Viterbo, Teaching Fellow in Political Sociology, Roma Tre University

Main points of the Rosatellum – Effects on candidacies; interplay at the regional level; poll results

The new Italian electoral law, so called ‘Rosatellum’ because of the deputy (Ettore Rosato) who presented the draft law, is a mixed system (64% proportional – 36% majoritarian), incorporating the main requirements deriving from the two sentences of the Constitutional Court on the previous electoral laws.  This new law abandoned the idea of seeking to assure that a ruling majority could be formed, thus heading towards a representative aim; it harmonized the different electoral laws ruling the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies; and finally, it was the expression of the Italian Parliament.

One of the big electoral changes after 1992/1993 was the search for a governing majority, and this move back to proportional representation in the new law has not been appreciated enough nationwide.

Harmonizing both chambers’ electoral laws let the critics remind people that at the very beginning of Italian republic the two chambers were designed to have different electors, members and characteristics (although, most of these differences only lasted until 1953).

Although it was only approved with 8 votes of confidence by both chambers, allowing its critics to undermine the validity of the procedure, more parliamentarians voted for the Rosatellum than any other Italian electoral law.

The Rosatellum has a range of new features which are worth us considering:

Providing the return to the ‘power of coalitions’ (which the ‘Italicum’ abandoned), the Rosatellum has three main national thresholds for parties to participate in the distribution of seats in Parliament: 1) parties under 1% of the national vote do not have any representation; 2) those parties forming a coalition who receive a percentage of votes between 1% and 3%  add their results to the coalition, but without receiving seats; 3) coalitions that include at least one party who received more than 3%, have to reach 10% of the ballots in order to receive seats.

Candidacies for the national seats (618 for the lower Chamber, 309 for the Senate) are restricted to one per party in the single-member constituencies (116 for the Senate and 232 for the Chamber) and up to five in the multi-member constituencies. It is very interesting to analyze the criteria for the allocation of the seats, since it is straightforward that winners in the plurality do get that seat, but where this were not the case, they could gain election in a constituency where they received a lower number of votes.

One more restriction, is that voters are now not able to choose a party list while voting for candidates (gender equality being provided) of other political forces outside of the coalition: this is going to be an interesting point when observing, in the same day, how many votes will be cancelled in the two Italian regions voting with different rules (Lazio and Lombardia), since enduring habits are extremely hard to win.

Finally, it is relevant, for the reasons behind it and the effects that this measure will produce, to consider the introduction of an antifraud voting card. Its introduction is a recognition of the practice of selling votes and sends a message to those who relied on this to guarantee their results, yet it will probably slowdown electoral procedures, thus implying possible traffic and queueing at polling stations.

In summary, after all these points, a few questions could arise:

• Due to the rules for allocation of the seats, which seats will candidates be elected for? Some solution that have been adopted can be read here;

• What will the differences be for voting national and regional? A useful answer would come from some examples of coalition-making at both levels: whereas M5S (Five Star Movement) does not seek to make coalitions anywhere, centre-left and centre-right coalitions are not composed by the same parties (ex-PD members who gave birth to a new left movement – LeU -, are running alone in areas where the Democratic Party is likely to do badly – Parliament and Lombardia -, but they are running together in Lazio where the Democratic Party is set to do well), and this varies because of the level of administration (State/Region) and the geographical position (North-Centre/South);

• With the target of the new law to represent Italians rather than assuring a majority to govern Italy for five years, what are the possible scenarios? While numbers during all the electoral campaign have been very stable at a macro level, observable variations could be found inside the coalitions, especially the centre-right, with Berlusconi’s Forza Italia acting as the frontrunner of its coalition, necessary for expressing his candidate for the Premiership, the actual President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani.

This article is the seventh in a new SPERI Comment series with the PSA Italian Politics Specialist Group on the 2018 Italian election.