Premier Matteo Renzi said Monday a
leftwing dissident minority within his own centre-left
Democratic Party (PD) might sink the government over its
contested 'Italicum' electoral reform bill, but they won't be
able to stop the change his executive is trying to usher in.
"They can send the government home if they really want, but
they can't stop the urgency for change that the PD today
represents," he wrote in a letter to the coordinators of local
PD branches.
Renzi's government is facing stiff opposition to its bill
for a new election system, which would award bonus seats to the
party winning 40% of the vote - or a run-off vote in case no one
party reaches that threshhold - to ensure it has a working
majority in parliament.
A minority within the PD argues the Italicum as it stands
will tip the balance of power away from parliament and in favor
of the executive.
At the same time the opposition is trying to delay its
ratification as long as possible because unlike Renzi's PD, no
other party is likely to win 40% of the vote on its own.
Some 100 amendments have been filed to the bill, according
to rapporteur and Constitutional affairs committee chairman
Francesco Paolo Sisto.
The premier has warned that his coalition executive will
collapse if the bill fails to win approval in what Renzi hopes
will be its final reading in parliament.
"If this election law does not win approval, the idea of
the PD as Italy's engine of change will be taken away," Renzi
wrote.
"In the votes coming up over the next few hours, the
election law is at stake, but so is the dignity of our party".
This was followed up with a letter sent by the PD's 20
regional secretaries to Lower House party MPs.
"Should the Italicum sink because of ambushes in secret
voting, we would endanger the government the PD is leading," the
letter said.
And while the premier conferred about the migrant
humanitarian emergency with United Nations Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon and EU High Foreign Representative Federica Mogherini on
board a Navy ship in the Strait of Sicily, on the home front
Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi did battle for the premier's
hotly contested Italicum.
The government is open to amending its Constitutional
reform bill, as long as the Italicum remains unchanged, Boschi
told the Lower House.
"In the process that links the Constitutional and electoral
laws, the government is willing to debate further on possible
modifications to the Constitutional reform bill (in the
Senate)," Boschi said.
"But this cannot be a barter, there is to be nothing given
in return," the minister said.
Boschi went on to tell rebellious MPs the Italicum
"guarantees stable governing majorities".
"This law will allow governments to enact their programs,
while affording them no alibis," she said, adding there is no
such thing as a perfect law.
The Renzi government wants the Italicum passed unamended,
as this means it will be ratified into law instead of going back
to the Senate for yet another reading.
In spite of recent sabre-rattling from PD rebels a
dissenting leftwing minority sent word late on Monday that "a
mediation is still possible".
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