Electoral law deal paves way for reforms in Italy

Italy's two biggest parties on Wednesday reached a deal on a new electoral law, which observers hope will clear the way for more reforms. "This time it is for real," the leader of the ruling center-left Democratic Party (PD) Matteo Renzi said after the agreement with the main opposition party, center-right Forza Italia (FI) led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, became final. "Now let's put everything into the institutional reforms and the labor law," Renzi underlined in a statement. Renzi has repeatedly said he will continue to support the coalition government of his party fellow Prime Minister Enrico Letta on the condition that it introduces much-needed structural reforms. Under Wednesday's deal, which is likely to be passed by parliament, a coalition that obtains at least 37 percent of the votes would get a bonus granting up to 55 percent of the seats. If no coalition obtains 37 percent or more of the vote, the top two alliances would confront in a second round. Not all political groups were satisfied with the agreement. Small parties were especially critical of the proposal, which put the vote threshold for parties in a coalition at 4.5 percent. Others saw the deal as the return of three-time premier Berlusconi, who was recently ejected from parliament amid legal troubles, to the center of the political stage. "Everyone has an ideal electoral law in his head. But we made a law that improves the present in the interest of the citizens," Maria Elena Boschi, the PD member responsible for reforms, said. Calls for a new voting system had become central in Italy's politics after the constitutional court last year declared invalid the current law, blamed for producing instability. The Letta government was the forced result of a long postelection deadlock. "No law can put an end to political instability in Italy, which was the fruit of parties which have lost their original structure to become fragmented and leader-centered," Michele Ainis, a noted public law professor and constitutional lawyer at Roma Tre University in Rome, told Xinhua. However, Ainis highlighted, "the proposed law is certainly better compared to the current system and is theoretically able to produce a clearer winner." Above all, the new voting law is expected to fuel the PD support to the government thus help the fragile coalition survive through 2014 while introducing some of the reforms necessary to revive the Italian economy. After the electoral law is passed, the PD aims at making Italy easier to govern starting from stripping the senate of its law-making powers, which Ainis explained was another major reason of political instability and slow decision-making in the country. Among the other planned institutional reforms there were abolishing the costly provincial governments and giving some powers back to central government. Letta hailed Wednesday's deal as "good news" which paves the way for more reforms that he defined as "fundamental for stability and in order for Italy to progress."