The Upper House on Tuesday
approved a gender equality amendment to Premier Matteo Renzi's
Senate revamp bill, and descended into chaos shortly after.
The amendment saying parliament must have equal numbers of
men and women was filed by Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party
(PD) and was approved with 277 votes in favor, one against and
seven abstaining.
Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso suspended voting on the next
amendment - one of 6,000 tabled by the opposition Left Ecology
Freedom (SEL) party - when the situation degenerated due to
protracted shouting by MPs from the anti-establishment 5-Star
Movement (M5S).
The amendment would have made the Senate a directly elected
body, instead of an assembly of regional officials as per
Renzi's bill. Voting on the amendment would have quashed other
votes tabled by other parties on the same issue.
"Interrupting the Senate debate is one of the worst
possible behaviors," warned Senate PD whip Luigi Zanda.
"If M5S Senators think they can intimidate us, they are way
off the mark".
Beppe Grillo followed this up by threatening to withdraw
his MPs.
"Why are we staying in parliament? To let ourselves be
duped by supporting a semblance of democracy while these lot
stage a coup?" Grillo wrote on his popular blog, which gave life
to the Internet-based M5S in 2009.
"We'll stay as long as it's possible to impede the coup of
the elimination of the elected Senate ... if they don't leave us
any choice, we'll go".
The M5S won a quarter of the vote in last year's
inconclusive general election.
Voting had already been suspended once, halfway through
Tuesday's session, pending the outcome of what turned out to be
an unsuccessful meeting of party whips.
Opponents of the bill filed a barrage of some 7,800
amendments to the bill that would revamp the Senate, essentially
stalling it since it hit the Senate floor last week.
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