Renzi reform runs into chaos

(ANSA) - Rome, July 29 - 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.