Italy’s government approves reform boosting prime minister’s powers, as bill heads to parliament

by VictorEmmanuelIV

9 comments

  1. “The Italian government on Friday approved plans for a constitutional reform that would significantly boost the prime minister’s powers — a major overhaul in a country with a traditionally weak head of government.”

    “The proposal from Giorgia Meloni’s government, which still requires approval from both houses of parliament and could lead to a referendum, would allow the prime minister to be directly elected by the Italian people for a five-year term, instead of being nominated by the president.”

    “This is the mother of all reforms,” Prime Minister Meloni said in a press conference.”

    “The proposed bill, Meloni added, aims to ensure “stability” and “guarantee that those who govern are chosen by the people.”

    “Italy’s prime minister has a traditionally weak role by design. After the Second World War, the country’s modern founding fathers instituted a series of checks and balances aimed at preventing the concentration of power into the hands of a single individual. This, combined with Italy’s fractious political landscape, has contributed to the instability of Italian politics, which has seen 68 different governments in the past 77 years.”

    Added details of bill in comment below:

  2. The direct election of the prime minister is stupid, but isn’t the problem.

    The real problem and potential danger here is that the same reform, if approved, would guarantee the coalition of the elected PM a 55% majority in parliament whatever the actual percentage of votes received.

    And the sad thing is that, in the name of stability and governability, a lot of people across the political spectrum love the concept of a majority-assuring system and many others can’t conceive a system where the “winner” doesn’t necessarily have a majority.

  4. Wait, so in the case this gets approved, the current coalition would get 55 percent of seats even if they lost? Srsly?

  5. I live in a country with a powerfull executive directly elected. It sucks. Never do it, parliamentarian democracies.

  6. This woman is literally a Christian Erdogan. Moderate looking extremist that will try to undermine democracy and state instituons slowly but steadily. Glad that Italy deeply connected to international markets much more than Turkey due EU membership. So she does not have as much room to maneuver like Erdogan.

  8. P2 never died, i hoped that with Silvio out of the game “the plan” would be finally abandoned but i was wrong.

  9. Why would they call it a prime minister if the position isn’t going to be reliant on having a majority in parliament in the first place?

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