Here’s what’s changing for political parties under the new electoral law. The final vote will take place tomorrow after 12 noon.

The electoral reform has reached its final stages. Today, the Chamber of Deputies approved the third and final motion of confidence tabled by the government on the Stabilicum bill, with 228 votes in favour, 144 against and 3 abstentions. The vote concerned Article 3 of the bill; on the same day, the Chamber was also called upon to examine Article 8, relating to the extension of off-site voting to family carers. Tomorrow will see the decisive stage: following the explanations of vote, scheduled for 10.30, the Chamber will hold a final vote on the bill by secret ballot, no earlier than 12.30.

The Stabilicum, therefore, is set to come into force, barring any major changes. The opposition and various committees of constitutional experts are already working to bring the matter before the Constitutional Court. However, if the Court were to take no action whatsoever, the electoral law would remain as voted on today. Here, then, is a list of all the consequences that the parties (whether large or small) would have to contend with before going to the polls.

The most onerous change concerns parties without sufficient parliamentary representation. To submit their lists, new parties would need to collect 6,000 signatures (rather than the previous 1,500) in each multi-member constituency in which they intend to stand. Nationwide, this requirement could therefore amount to several hundred thousand signatures.

Political parties that have a parliamentary group established within the time limits laid down by law are exempt from the signature collection process. Merely having a few MPs or a contingent within the Mixed Group would not, however, be sufficient. For parties already represented in Parliament, this exemption represents a significant organisational advantage. New parties, on the other hand, would have to devote a substantial part of their campaign to the certification and authentication of signatures, as well as to ensuring a widespread presence across the country.

It is precisely against this mechanism that Riccardo Magi, secretary of +Europa, began a hunger strike on 30 September. The MP has in fact contested both the increase in the number of signatures required and the disparity between the parties already in Parliament and the new political groups. “I’m fine, I’m tired, but I’m very convinced and determined to continue the fast,” he commented today, emphasising that the electoral law sought by the centre-right transforms “a minority in the country into an overwhelming majority in Parliament. I am calling for at least the part that moves us away from democracy to be amended – the part that prevents citizens from standing as candidates because a threshold of 450,000 signatures has been set for parties or political groups wishing to take part in the elections. Magi’s protest also concerns the lack of a procedure for collecting signatures digitally. The leader of +Europa has called for online signatures to be permitted, including via tools such as SPID, which are already used for referendums and citizens’ legislative initiatives.

Alessandro Onorato, a councillor in Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri’s administration and leader of Progetto Civico Italia, has also protested against the rule. In recent days, Bruno Tabacci, president of Centro Democratico and a Member of Parliament – whose party symbol had previously been used by smaller political groups to circumvent the requirement for signatures – has come forward in support of Onorato. Speaking to Il Foglio, however, Tabacci ruled out offering his support: “Hand over the symbol? Hand over what? What do they want to do? Do they want to side with Conte?”, he said, before cautioning: “Let them set out their programmes and their plans, and then we’ll see. In any case, everyone will have to collect the signatures they need to collect.” Tabacci’s attention, if anything, is entirely focused on Più Uno, the new party led by Ernesto Maria Ruffini, former director of the Revenue Agency. “Ruffini’s proposal is a serious one. He has written a thousand-page book on the constitution; he is a public servant. The civic lists, on the other hand, are all well and good, but what are they there for?”, Tabacci told Il Foglio some time ago.

The majority bonus under the new electoral law would only be triggered if a coalition were to secure more than 42 per cent of the vote. In that case, the coalition would receive 70 additional seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 35 in the Senate, up to a maximum of 220 deputies and 113 senators. The bonus could therefore give the winning coalition a very large parliamentary majority. If, however, no coalition exceeds 42 per cent, the seats are allocated using the proportional representation system provided for by law. Even a coalition that comes first might therefore not have the numbers required to govern.

This is a rather high threshold and, according to the available data, traditional coalitions often fall below that level. The centre-right, without the support of Futuro Nazionale, has been estimated at around 39–40 per cent, whilst the centre-left could exceed 42 per cent only in a broader coalition, including additional centrist parties.

Each list or coalition should specify the name of the candidate it intends to put forward for the post of Prime Minister. Voters would therefore not merely be choosing a list, but also the government programme and the leadership associated with that list or coalition. The parties would thus be obliged to decide before the vote who should lead the government, rather than postponing the decision entirely until after the election.

For the centre-right, the main issue would be determining whether the candidate should be the leader of the strongest party or be chosen through an agreement between allies. For the centre-left, however, the matter appears more complex because the coalition would need to reconcile potentially competing parties and leaderships. It is in this context that the primaries take on particular significance. The Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement and any other potential allies could use them to select a joint candidate, but they could also exacerbate internal conflicts: a candidate backed by the largest party would not automatically be accepted by its allies, especially if they feared losing autonomy or electoral clout. The debate over the primaries is rather heated: the reformists within the PD would like a two-round system, whilst Conte is calling for a single round and online voting; however, there is also discussion about voting at polling stations and whether or not to charge participants a fee to take part. There are several issues to be resolved, and we have outlined them all in a definitive guide and an Instagram carousel.

The lists would consist of seven candidates: one fixed lead candidate and six candidates subject to preferential voting. The lead candidate would be chosen directly by the party and would be elected if the list secured at least one seat in the constituency. The other candidates, on the other hand, would compete for the remaining seats through preferential voting.

Voters could express up to three preferences. However, the choice would be subject to gender alternation: preferences would have to alternate between male and female candidates, following sequences such as man-woman-man or woman-man-woman. This rule would prevent all preferences from being concentrated on candidates of the same sex. The list leader, however, would not be subject to a vote by the electorate. This means that the system would be neither entirely proportional nor entirely preference-based. The first seat won by the list would go to the candidate chosen by the party leadership, whilst preferences would only become decisive if the list managed to secure at least a second seat in the constituency. Preferences would only really count in constituencies where the list managed to elect more than one candidate. For this reason, the opposition has described the mechanism as a form of partial or ‘fake’ preference.

The law retains the 3 per cent threshold for individual lists, but introduces a mechanism to prevent only the largest parties from being represented within a coalition. The first list in the coalition that falls below 3 per cent may be reinstated, subject to the conditions set out in the legislation. This mechanism does not save all small parties. If, for example, within a coalition one list obtains 2.8 per cent, a second 2 per cent and a third 1 per cent, only the first list below the threshold would benefit. The others would remain excluded.