The centre-right reaches agreement on the electoral law: preferential votes with gender alternation

The centre-right has reached an agreement on the electoral law. Following the rejection by the majority in the Chamber of Deputies of the amendment introducing preferential voting to the bill, a meeting today between the reform’s lead negotiators has resulted in an agreement to reintroduce the same amendment in the Senate, where the bill will be debated from September. The meeting took place at the Fratelli d’Italia headquarters in Via della Scrofa and had been requested by Forza Italia in order to reach an agreement before the summer recess.

The three parties have decided to reintroduce preferences into the text and have amended part of it, compared with the amendment voted on in the Chamber of Deputies, so as to better safeguard gender alternation: according to reports, the new text stipulates that this must be respected with a 60–40 per cent ratio among the list leaders.

It was precisely this alternation between male and female candidates that appears to have prompted several dissenting MPs (hidden by the secret ballot requested in the Chamber of Deputies by the centre-left) to vote against the amendment tabled in the Chamber of Deputies: on that occasion, the majority fell one vote short, and the aim now is to avoid a repeat of the same scenario in the Senate, where a secret ballot is not provided for. Among the main supporters of preferential voting is Fratelli d’Italia, which, during the debate in the Chamber of Deputies, had also voted in favour of an amendment by Futuro Nazionale aimed at introducing it: in that instance too, the amendment was rejected.