Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's flagship electoral reform bill is inching ever closer to becoming law, with the Chamber of Deputies expected to vote in early-to-mid October.
The draft law awards a ‘majority seat bonus’ or ‘prize’ to the coalition that wins at least 42 percent of the vote – a move Meloni says will produce more stable governments, while opposition parties accuse her of attempting a power grab.
READ ALSO: What do Meloni’s electoral reforms mean for Italy?
One measure in the bill that so far hasn’t attracted much attention, however, is a planned change to the voting system that “virtually all parties” project “will significantly, if not drastically, reduce female representation in parliament”, according to national newspaper Il Post.
Under Italy's existing electoral law, neither gender can be represented by more than 60 percent of candidates in single-member constituencies and in the top positions in multi-member districts (known as the ‘60/40 ratio’).
In its current form, Meloni's bill would for the most part scrap this rule, leaving it in place for just a few of the seats.
The latest draft introduces partial preference voting for candidates (Italian voters currently can't express any preference), but the lead candidate or 'capolista' for each constituency would still be picked by their party – and none of them have to be women.
Vincenzo Emanuele, an associate professor of political science at Luiss University in Rome, told The Local that the bill is expected to pass in its current form, and that the warnings are not alarmist.
“The number of women is expected to be drastically reduced”, he says.
“This is not an automatic effect of the law”, he adds: “Rather, it is a likely scenario if one considers the lack of gender-balance norms on closed-list leaders and the propensity of Italian voters to prime men's representation when preferential voting is allowed.”
In terms of numbers, he says, “240 MPs will be elected as closed-list leaders (capilista bloccati) and these can potentially be all men.”
“74 MPs will be elected through preferential voting (with men and women alternating in the list but you can expect many more men elected) and 70 MPs will be elected through the 70-seat prize (with 60/40 balance granted by the law).
“Therefore, the expectation to halve the number of women is credible.”
Women representatives currently make up 33 percent of Italy’s parliament between the lower house and the Senate, placing it above the EU average, according to Il Post.
With the passage of this law, that figure is projected to drop to between 15 and 20 percent.
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