Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is author of ‘The Political Economy of Italy’s Decline’ and ‘The Republic of Innovation’
Last month, the lower chamber of Italy’s parliament approved a drastic rewriting of the country’s electoral law, which might herald a snap election.
If ratified by the Senate, this will be the fourth electoral reform in two decades. The three previous initiatives had nakedly partisan motives and strictly partisan support — the first was passed by the centre-right (2005), the second (2015) and third (2017) by the centre-left. Each produced complex and eccentric electoral systems while sapping political accountability and trust in representative democracy. The same is true of this reform, which was pushed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing coalition.
The first two reforms were struck down by the constitutional court because they gave voters next to no say in the selection of MPs (something largely left to party leaders) and distorted the translation of votes into seats (by awarding a potentially vast number of additional seats — a “majority premium” — to the winner). For the same reasons, this new reform is also arguably unconstitutional.
That is why Meloni might seek a snap election — likely in early 2027 — precisely in order to forestall the court. If the judges were to invalidate the reform after the election, the court would neither invalidate the vote nor deny the winner its majority premium.
The rationale for the reform is clear. Like a fishmonger after days of rough seas, Meloni has scant goods to sell. When she took office in late 2022, she staked her political capital on managing Italy’s slow economic decline, rather than trying to reverse it. She did so by favouring multiple special interests including micro firms and the self-employed, and designating scapegoats — as her reaction to the recent Ceuta migrant crisis shows.
Her government undermined economic institutions crucial for innovation and creative destruction, whose weakness is the proximate cause of Italy’s long-stagnant productivity. Broad amnesties for tax evasion and illegal construction have further enfeebled the rule of law, and a recent reform of the stock market curtailed protections for minority shareholders, which will further lower corporate governance standards and hinder companies’ growth.
The centre-left laments the country’s low wages and widespread injustices. But it still lacks credible ideas for shifting Italy on to a fairer and more productive path. Meanwhile, public debt stands at 138.5 per cent of GDP, up from 120.8 per cent in 2011, when a crisis of confidence in Italian bonds threatened the survival of the euro and the EU itself.
Given all this, four years after Meloni took the helm, the lower and middle classes are not content.
Hence her proposed reform, which is designed to favour coalitions — like her own — that face no competitors at their margins. The ploy initially seemed endangered by the rise of a new demagogic party, National Future, which vehemently attacks Meloni’s government from the right. But as no principles divide them, and co-option would be mutually beneficial, I expect the new party to eventually join her coalition.
Meloni has been suitably European and Atlanticist in foreign policy, winning her acceptance as a credible partner by Berlin and Brussels. She has even managed to maintain a workable balance between closeness to Washington and distance from Donald Trump’s most extreme extravagances.
Neither this balancing act nor her electoral reform will guarantee Meloni’s victory at the next election. What is certain is that this reform will add to the ruin of Italy’s political institutions.
European conservatives were perhaps unwise in embracing Meloni so warmly; European progressives might wish to be more demanding of her opponents, should they succeed her.
