Electoral reform nears the finish line as Italian politics bids farewell to Emma Bonino
Italy’s electoral reform has taken another step towards its final shape. The Senate has approved the majority amendment introducing preferential voting, changing one of the most debated features of the bill previously passed by the Chamber of Deputies. Voters will be able to indicate up to three candidates, with gender alternation rules applying, while the first candidate on each list will remain blocked. The compromise moves away from the fully closed lists envisaged in the first version of the reform, while preserving for political parties the power to select the first elected candidate on each list. The amendment was approved with 97 votes in favour, 67 against and two abstentions.
Preferential voting has also been at the centre of the most delicate discussions within the centre-right coalition in recent hours. Brothers of Italy had considered supporting opposition proposals to extend preferences to all candidates, thereby removing blocked lead candidates as well. Forza Italia opposed any further change to the agreement already reached within the majority. In the end, the compromise remained intact: voters will be able to choose some of those elected, while party leaderships will retain a degree of control over candidate selection.
The overall structure of the reform remains the one developed over recent months. The system will be proportional, with a fixed bonus of 70 seats in the Chamber and 35 in the Senate for the party or coalition securing at least 42% of the vote and winning in both chambers of Parliament. If no one reaches that threshold, or if the two chambers produce different outcomes, seats will be distributed proportionally. The thresholds of 3% for individual parties and 10% for coalitions remain in place, while the possibility of a runoff, discussed during part of the summer negotiations, has been dropped. Coalitions will also have to indicate, when submitting their candidate lists, the person they intend to propose to the President of the Republic as prime minister.
The philosophy behind the new system is therefore becoming increasingly clear: strengthen the possibility of producing a parliamentary majority without turning the vote into a fully majoritarian system and, at the same time, restore to voters part of the power to choose their representatives. Some issues remain unresolved, starting with the rules governing parties that fail to reach the required thresholds and the balance between preferences and blocked lead candidates. The Senate vote does not conclude the legislative process, however. The amendments approved in Palazzo Madama mean that the Chamber of Deputies will have to examine the bill again in a third reading, scheduled to begin on 28 September.
The reform is therefore entering its decisive phase as the legislature moves into its final stretch and parties inevitably begin to assess the new rules against today’s political balance. The 42% threshold, the fixed majority bonus and the return of preferential voting will affect both coalition strategies and internal competition within individual political blocs. For the governing majority, the stated objective remains to guarantee governability without abandoning a proportional framework; the opposition, meanwhile, continues to criticise a system drawn up without a broader agreement among parliamentary forces.
The political day of 11 September has also been marked by the death of Emma Bonino, who passed away at the age of 78. Her death removes from the stage one of the most recognisable figures in Italian politics over the past fifty years, whose career began in Marco Pannella’s Radical Party and continued through both Italian and European institutions. A member of both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, a Member of the European Parliament, a European Commissioner, Minister for International Trade and later Foreign Minister, Bonino was above all associated with battles for civil rights and European integration.
Her political activity began in the 1970s, when abortion and divorce were among the main areas of confrontation between the Radical movement and the Italian political establishment. Over the years, those campaigns were joined by battles against the death penalty, for women’s rights, for the rule of law and for a strongly rights-based and liberal approach to individual freedoms. Referendums, hunger strikes, acts of civil disobedience and transnational campaigns became recurring tools of a political method that remained recognisable even as the electoral presence of the Radical movement gradually declined.
Europe was the other constant throughout her career. From her time at the European Commission to the creation of +Europa, Bonino continued to argue for moving beyond a European Union based mainly on cooperation between states towards a genuinely political form of integration. It was a conviction she maintained in her later years as well, accompanied by criticism of national governments seeking greater autonomy precisely when, in her view, international crises showed the need for a stronger Europe.
What remains is the profile of a politician who crossed very different political eras without changing some of the essential elements of her identity. Her positions were often divisive and some of her more recent electoral projects failed to achieve their expected results, but Bonino retained an ability to influence public debate far beyond the numerical weight of the political forces she represented. Her death closes one of the longest and most distinctive chapters in the history of the Italian Republic, shaped by civil rights campaigns at home and an unwavering commitment to European integration.
