More than a year after the triumph of the Italian right in the parliamentary elections, her imagination of rebuilding the state is becoming clearer. The Prime Minister of Meloni leads the Italian Brothers (FdI), accompanied by Leg Matteo Salvini and Forza Italia, whose founder and longtime leader died a fewer months ago.. Silvio Berlusconi would be pleased with the next steps of the right hand.
The Meloni government had already begun media submission and faced the courts, but now he decided to take on the full political system, which had been under constant attack by the right hand for a long time. FdI's leader went further than always before, presenting a task to turn the Italian Republic upside down.
Down with parliamentary!
Main Point "mothers of all reforms", utilizing Meloni's words, is simply a direct vote for Prime Minister. This means that any organization or coalition in the election will gotta present their candidate, who will take office in case of victory. This solution had previously only functioned in Israel in the 1990s, ending with a spectacular flop and resignation from this strategy after little than a decade.
The elected Prime Minister, however, is only the tip of the iceberg – in order to guarantee stableness in the regulation the formation, which will receive the most votes, is to receive 55 percent seats in parliament. Theoretically, this could lead to a 20% consequence for a safe parliamentary majority of the winning party, if its opponents get 19.9% votes. The apparent effect of specified a strategy will so be to merge into larger coalitions and yet to make a two-party system.
Moreover, the removal of the Prime Minister thus elected will become a neck-breaking task. The task provides for only 2 options in the event of the resignation of the head of government or his dismissal by a vote of distrust: the election of another individual from the same organization or the accelerated election. In the first scenario, face changes, not politics, while Parliament's dissolution is something that can easy be blackmailed by weaker parties. We so receive a Prime Minister stronger than in any another democratic country, and in any respects stronger than many heads of state in presidential systems.
In the United States or France, presidents have very broad prerogatives, but a possible regulation is simply a hostile parliament for them. Joe Biden must conflict with the Republican Congress, and Emmanuel Macron's life is simply a nuisance to the deficiency of majority in the National Assembly. On the another hand, the Italian Prime Minister from Meloni's imagination will always have an obedient parliament at his disposal, which will make the election a cyclical vote for the sole ruler. The actions of Meloni show that, in the end, the fascist roots of the Italian Brothers are not insignificant, despite the deradicalization and relaxation of communicative over decades. The love of a strong hand for government survived, reflecting the government's proposals.
History snickering
The government announced its plans almost precisely on the centennial of a akin maneuver performed by Benito Mussolini. Forced in November 1923, Acerbo's law established that the winning organization would receive two-thirds of the seats in the parliament after the election, as long as it only obtained more than 25% of the votes. In practice, this was to warrant the majority of constitutional fascists who were increasingly pushing Italy towards dictatorship.
Due to the experience of Fascism in Italy, the post-war coalition of guerrilla parties (socialists, communists and chadeci) prepared a draft constitution, for which the main objectives were to safeguard democracy from Mussolini's graves. In this way, the Italian Republic became a state with a comparatively weak executive power and a strong parliament, elected in a proportional ordination. For a long time this system, born in the 1940s, has been heavy criticized, blamed for chronic instability in Italian politics. Is that right?
There is no denying that in 75 years since the proclamation of the cabinet republic there were 68. While citing this statistic, it should be remembered that most of these exchanges did not mean accelerated elections or greater adjustment of the state's course, but only shuffling within the ruling camp. Often, even the Prime Minister did not change. In the realities of apparent instability, Italy survived its economical miracle. However, erstwhile problems began, the shaky parliamentary strategy became an easy scapegoat and various ointment politicians, from Berlusconi to Beppe Grillo, gained support for his criticism.
In fresh decades, reforms were repeatedly sought to bring greater stableness at the expense of parliamentary pluralism, experimented with bonuses for the winning party, elements of majority ordination, etc., but not much changed in the overall state of the country – tea does not get sweeter than mixing itself. That doesn't mean the Italians are tired of trying again. The political class took care to effectively alienate them to the organization and parliament.
The sad effects of technocracy on democracy
In the break from the regulation of autocratic politicians (with Berlusconi at the head) technocrats, whose backs were hidden by parliamentarians in the event of major problems. First of all, the Monti bankers come to head and Draghi, but more or little this category includes Conte, Letta and any of their predecessors. With each next method government, the bitterness of voters, whose voices seemed to be thrown into the garbage.
This sentiment uses Meloni, presenting your task as a chance to get free of technocrats erstwhile and for all. The Prime Minister assures that the direct election of the Prime Minister will reconstruct the power of citizens. A very hypocritical presentation of the case, if you think of practically certain concreteization of the political scene and the creation of a two-party system, in which pluralism will be importantly reduced – but the Italians are tired of method governments adequate that they are able to believe it, or at least accept the authoritarian phrase as a lesser evil towards subsequent prime ministers-bankers from parliamentary anointing.
Since the change of constitution requires a majority of 2 thirds in parliament, it is almost certain that the referendum on Meloni's proposed reform. Assuming a fast start to the legislative process, it should take place in 2026. The opposition so has more than 2 years to convince the Italians to trust the anti-fascist constitution one more time and to vote against the right-wing government's peaceful democracy project. The task is hard and possibly doomed to failure, unless opposition politicians learn from their past mistakes.
