What the premiership will be like
The Italian premiership will not be like American presidentialism nor like French semi-presidentialism. Guiglia's notebook
It is not an American-style presidentialism nor a French-style semi-presidentialism. The constitutional amendment text approved yesterday by the Council of Ministers envisages an Italian-style premiership that is unique in the world. Elsewhere there is no direct election of the Prime Minister. The only experiment in Israel lasted just two elections (1996 and 1999) and was then repealed.
FROM PRESIDENTIALISM TO PREMIERE
But in the hope of gathering consensus even among the opposition, and in order not to create self-defeating conflicts with the Quirinale, the majority preferred to veer from presidentialism to the premiership with unchanged powers. Therefore, a compromise to change a lot, leaving things as they are: even the current powers of the President of the Republic are not affected. They delimit themselves. The future Prime Minister will be elected by the Italians and no longer chosen by the head of state, called to follow the popular will. But not deprived of all its other high prerogatives (except the abolished possibility of appointing 5 senators for life).
An appropriate but bungled anti-tipping rule is foreseen. In order to no longer witness the unseemly spectacle of changing coats and coalitions with elected officials from one side ending up there in defiance of the will of those who voted for them, a compromise mechanism is also envisaged here.
If the head of government falls, he can be replaced by vote of Parliament, but only once. And with the constraint of the program: as long as the successor and parliamentarian (the era of the "technicians" in Palazzo Chigi is over), commits himself to the political direction expressed by the majority of Italians. Otherwise we'll go back to the polls.
THE MOTHER OF ALL REFORMS
Finally, to avoid the risk of impossible cohabitation, contextual voting in a single ballot is proposed for Palazzo Chigi and for Parliament. Therefore, a further electoral reform will be needed in support of this "mother of all reforms", as Giorgia Meloni defined the unprecedented popular premiership. It will have to ensure a minimum threshold of 55% of the seats (the principle of the majority bonus is also enshrined in the Constitution) for the lists linked to the elected Prime Minister. Something similar to the election of the mayor, who drags out his majority in the city council to avoid ungovernability.
Against which ("68 governments in 75 years of the Republic", Meloni recalled), this text sets sail for a long navigation between consensus and controversy. The main one: a prime minister elected by the citizens weakens the role of a president of the Republic elected by the legislators.
THE REFORM ON DIFFERENTIATED AUTONOMY
The new premiership acts as a counterweight to the reform, also in difficult progress, on differentiated autonomy for the regions. But at least there is not one obstacle: the premiership is free, that is, it does not involve the considerable resources, yet to be found, for the essential levels of performance throughout the national territory, as autonomy requires.
And in any case the mother of all reforms will meet the vote of her children, because the Italians will have the last word with the confirmatory referendum, given that for now only Matteo Renzi from the opposition shares the centre-right's initiative.
Without a vote of two-thirds of the Houses, the citizens will decide whether to decide who will be the head of government.
(Published in L'Arena di Verona and Il Giornale di Vicenza)
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/premierato-come-sara/ on Sun, 05 Nov 2023 06:52:01 +0000.