The new electoral law is a snapshot of the evolution of the ruling right wing

As you know, the electoral law was finally passed on Thursday, and setting aside the controversy that is bound to follow, the reform is a perfect snapshot of the evolution of the ruling right-wing: from the season of electoral promises to that of reality. In the 2022 elections, as you will recall, the centre-right presented itself to the electorate promising an ambitious reform: a presidential system, even in the watered-down version of a semi-presidential system. In short: the idea of the direct election of the head of state. Over the course of the months – right from the government’s first few months in office – that dream gradually faded away. The presidential system, which had already become a semi-presidential system, was transformed into a reform that was still constitutional but of a lesser scope: the ‘premierato’. The premierato system, designed to grant greater powers to the head of government, encountered significant resistance, despite having been promoted in different forms by the left in the past; and from the premierato we have arrived at an electoral law which, in order to keep the banner of direct election – or semi-direct, or almost direct, or something along those lines – of the head of government (and no longer of the head of state) flying high, provides for the designation of the candidate for Prime Minister in the coalition’s manifesto. Between saying and doing lies the business of governing – provided, that is, the Constitutional Court does not interfere and snatch even that scrap of a dream away from the election campaign.

  What you have just read is an extract from editor-in-chief Claudio Cerasa’s newsletter, La Situa. You can subscribe here – it’s simple and free.