Instabilicum: fifth time lucky?

Italy’s fifth electoral law in thirty years would have voters endorse lists whose candidates they cannot choose and a Prime Minister (PM) whose name is not on the ballot. Not that the name matters: the Constitution doesn’t even let voters pick the PM. Its authors claim to have stability in mind. The Constitutional Court may beg to differ.

New election, new electoral law

Here comes one of the most common openings when writing on Italian politics: “We keep changing the electoral law”. Yet, this is simply the truth. Since 1994, members of the two chambers of the Italian parliament have tabled around 350 bills to change the electoral law. That is one every month. For comparison, France has been using the same law since 1958 (with one 1986 exception), Spain since 1985 and the UK had a referendum in 2011 to change the system but 67.9% voted against. After the relatively stable electoral law of 1946, Italy changed its system in 1994, 2006, 2015, 2017, and now, in 2026, a fifth change is expected after a vote in the Senate by the autumn.

This proposal, already named Stabilicum following the Latinist tradition, brings back proportional representation, but strips it of voters’ choice of candidates and risks weakening the link between votes and seats due to a “majority prize” which would be awarded to the coalition with the most votes. 

In contrast to Rosatellum, the electoral law in force since 2017, the new law brings back proportional voting. With the 2017 law, approximately 61% of seats were allocated with proportional representation and 37% in single-member districts, with a first-past-the-post system. Moreover, a voter could not back two different lists in the proportional and majoritarian parts, thus favouring the leading coalitions and larger parties. The Stabilicum would abolish single-member districts and allocate all seats proportionally, keeping the 3% threshold, but making exceptions only for the best sub-3% list inside coalitions that reach 10%.

The hypocrisy

“Yet again appointed MPs. That’s disgusting.” (“Ancora una volta parlamentari nominati. Che schifo.”): this, ironically, was Meloni’s reaction to the defeat of a preference amendment her own party had tabled in 2014. On 14 July 2026, voting by secret ballot, the lower chamber rejected an amendment introducing preferences by a single vote, despite the backing of the entire majority: some 40 MPs, the so-called “franchi tiratori” (snipers) in Italian political jargon, broke ranks and sank it. Two days later, the same chamber passed the bill 217 votes to 152.

Should the bill become law, legal challenges are already waiting. The Stabilicum’s blocked lists are shorter than the Porcellum’s, making it easier to satisfy the constitutional requirement of conoscibilità (knowability) of candidates. It was precisely the length of the Porcellum’s wholly blocked lists that led the Constitutional Court to strike them down in 2014. Yet the Court could still censure the new system: with no possibility of expressing preferences at all, it arguably violates the principles of personal and direct vote. In 2017, after all, the Court tolerated the Italicum’s blocked first-of-the-list candidates only because preferences still applied to the remaining candidates on shorter lists.

Blocked lists, twice over

The name Stabilicum was given due to the alleged intention of making it easier to build a stable government after the next election. This would be achieved through a bonus-seat mechanism. Initially, the law proposed a second round between the two coalitions with the most votes if both had received more than 35% of the votes. This was later dropped, says Mr Iezzi (the League), due to fears of building a system that would be too complicated or not constitutionally sound. Prof. Fasano (University of Milan) noted that the second round could have created noteworthy distortions.

The bonus would grant 70 extra deputies and 35 extra senators to the list or coalition that comes first in both chambers and gets at least 42% of votes. These bonuses are capped at a total of 220 deputies (out of 400) and 113 senators (out of 200). These extra MPs would not be chosen from the same blocked lists of the proportional districts, but from a parallel list, also blocked; this list would be triggered only if the first coalition gets at least 42% of votes and is drawn up by the parties making up the coalition. This raises concerns as the bonus list would arguably not guarantee the conoscibilità of the candidates. Moreover, Article 57 of the Italian Constitution states that the Senate is elected on a regional basis; therefore, the bonus seats must be granted on a regional basis as well. This leads to the possibility of awarding the bonus to a different coalition, turning Stabilicum into an instability law.

Premierato through the back door?

Another reform long coveted by the Italian right-wing majority is the premierato. Today, the PM is named by the President of the Republic after consulting the parliamentary majority. The premierato constitutional bill would introduce the direct election of the PM and an automatic majority bonus for the list that is associated with the winning PM. It would also limit the President’s ability to name a PM to one time only before elections, should the government fall; and abolish the President’s power to appoint senators for life. The premierato bill stalled, after being approved by the Senate, as the chances of seeing it become reality plummeted when the majority saw the March referendum on justice rejected by 53.25% of voters. In effect, the premierato reform, which Minister Casellati hoped to turn into law before the next legislature, was abandoned due to the high political risk of another referendum.

Meloni’s government seems to have found a way to sneak a “de facto premierato” through the proposed law, as a requirement of the Stabilicum bill would be to have the political parties or coalitions declare, while presenting their candidacies, the name of the person that they propose as next PM. Most curiously, the name would not appear on the ballot paper. Thus, in the voting booth, voters would be asked to endorse a PM whose name they cannot see and vote for lists whose candidates they cannot choose. If this does not seem unusual enough, Article 92 of the Constitution specifically hands to the President of the Republic the right and duty to name the PM, following parliamentary arithmetic and the President’s own judgement. The authors of the bill, facing criticism, added a clause explicitly preserving the prerogatives of the President of the Republic. In fact, Mattarella would be completely free to appoint whomever the Parliament would support.

Prof. Calvano (Unitelma Sapienza) told Pagella Politica that the law risks being incompatible with the parliamentary system. If the bonus seats are not triggered and the system runs on pure proportionality, the parties may be forced to support a PM that they did not name to voters.

A law built on hope

Both devices are built for the outcome their authors are hoping for: marginalising smaller parties, getting more than 42% of the votes to earn the bonus seats and naming Meloni PM once again. However, due to Vannacci’s newborn Futuro Nazionale polling around 6% and sitting outside the right-wing coalition, the aim may be harder to achieve than initially thought. The majority has tried to hinder him through other means, by re-drawing the signature-collection exemption so that Futuro Nazionale would not qualify for the ballot.

In the meantime, both sides are playing the Court: the majority to survive a constitutional review, while the opposition rejects every improvement to see it struck down. What was born as yet another electoral law to ensure stability may not survive the Court, or may turn the next legislature into chaos.