Meloni's coalition loses important election-law vote

Premier Giorgia Meloni's ruling coalition lost an important vote in the Lower House regarding a bill for a new election law on Tuesday, sparking calls from the opposition for early elections.

An amendment to the bill presented by Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) with two small centrist parties, NM and UDC, and supported by the other parties in the ruling coalition to give voters the option to express preferences on an electoral list was rejected in a secret ballot with 187 votes in favour and 188 against.

Opposition lawmakers chanted "elections" and "resignations" after the result was shown.

The opposition has cried foul about the ruling majority's drive to overhaul the electoral system, saying they are changing it because they fear losing the general election set to take place next year and want to minimize the chances of this happening.

"It is necessary to take responsibility for one's decisions," said ex-premier and 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Giuseppe Conte.

"After four years, the government wants to change the rules of the game, with this treacherous attempt by FdI and Meloni to make a mockery of Italians with a fake amendment on preferences.

"Meloni laid down the challenge to stand by your decisions; you did just that and voted no confidence in your own prime minister".

Conte called for a government crisis to be triggered and a snap election be held.

Elly Schlein, the leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), agreed.

"It's time for you to go home and give the country a government capable of solving Italy's problems," Schlein told the House.

"Recognize your failure and go home".

The bill would see the current system, a mix of first-past-the-post and proportional representation, replaced with a proportional-representation system with bonus seats for a coalition that obtains at least 42% of the vote to ensure it has a working majority in parliament.

The coalition that comes first and crosses the threshold gets 70 extra seats in the Lower House and 35 in the Senate.

If no coalition reaches the 42% threshold, or the votes for the Lower House and the Senate produce different results, a purely proportional system is used.

The FdI-NM-UDC amendment would have given voters the option to express preferences for up to three candidates on a list.

The opposition said the amendment gave voters "fake preferences" as the head of the ticket would always be "blocked", arguing this was also be a step back for equality, as, in theory, it would be possible for all the ticket heads to be men.

"This was a vote against the arrogance of a woman leader who was willing to crush the power of other women in other to defend her own," said Schlein.

The current system promotes gender balance by requiring that, in each region, heads of lists of either sex for the same party should not exceed 60% of the total and that candidates in all lists must be in a sequence alternating by gender.

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