Lawmakers from the anti-establishment 5Star Movement — which has criticized the proposed electoral system as a plot to suppress their numbers in parliament — reacted with fury, declaring the confidence vote an “attack on democracy” and an “emergency,” and promising to take to the streets. [...]
If an election were held under this mix, polls indicate it would result in either no viable coalition in parliament; or an alliance of populist, Euroskeptic and right-wing forces that would cause international markets to tremble. One Italian official described any election as a “blind gamble.” [...]
The problem is not that an electoral law is difficult to design in itself, but that parties appear unable to put aside their own interests to agree on one. The biggest change in the new electoral law is that it would allow parties to contest seats as coalitions: a change that the 5Star Movement sees as a direct attack on its electoral chances. [...]
The Porcellum made voters pick only between parties, with no candidates named on the ballot, giving party grandees a power of patronage they have since been loath to give up.
It also granted a 55 percent majority to the most successful alliance in the lower house. But proposed curbs on the power of the Senate meant to accompany it were rejected in a referendum the following year.
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