Italian MP expelled from chamber after calling electoral reform a 'coup d'état' and displaying mock ballot

The protest and expulsion

+Europa secretary Riccardo Magi, acting as minority rapporteur on the electoral reform bill, opened the general debate by holding up a facsimile ballot with the words "Il tuo voto non conta" ("Your vote doesn't count") printed in large type. The session chair, Anna Ascani, ordered him to remove the poster three times. He then tore it up shouting that the majority was "shredding the Constitution."

When minister for institutional reforms Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati began her speech, Magi interrupted repeatedly with further banners. He was expelled after three formal warnings. The session was suspended for about fifteen minutes; Magi briefly occupied the chamber before leaving, later saying he feared a suspension that would keep him out of the final votes.

This electoral law is really an electoral coup d'état. Let's call it a mild coup d'état, a bureaucratic coup d'état, but still a coup d'état. A line is being crossed, and it is being accepted that Parliament becomes an organ elected by being dragged along behind the leader.

The bill's controversial core

The legislation, dubbed Stabilicum or Bignami 2, contains a provision exempting parties from signature collection if they had a parliamentary group formed by 2025. Critics call it the "anti-Vannacci norm" and say it also penalises formations like +Europa. Magi contrasted the treatment of Noi Moderati, led by Maurizio Lupi, which received roughly 250,000 votes (0.9%) and can participate, with +Europa, which took 820,000 votes (2.9%) and would have to overcome signature hurdles.

On top of the havoc linked to the whole structure of this law, which goes beyond the 'legge truffa' and looks to the Acerbo law of 1923 because it transforms a minority of the country into a parliamentary majority, they add the fact that they decide, on a discretionary and arbitrary basis, who can take part in elections.

The accusation of a hidden prime ministerial system

Opposition deputies argue the bill introduces a de facto prime ministerial system without changing the constitution. Minister Casellati rejected this reading, insisting that the text explicitly preserves the president of the republic's prerogatives under Article 92.

The idea that the parties' indication of a candidate for prime minister would compress the head of state's appointment power, altering constitutional balances and introducing a sort of premierato without constitutional change, is false. The law refers textually to the prerogatives of the president of the republic, which remain unchanged.

Casellati called talk of a premierato a distraction from a bill that, in her view, sacrifices nothing of parliamentary representativeness.

The majority's preference-vote puzzle

Fratelli d'Italia wants to table an amendment restoring preference votes, a move its centre-right allies oppose. Chamber group leader Galeazzo Bignami said the party is seeking a "unitary amendment" with the whole coalition to allow Italians to indicate preferences, while a majority source warned a secret ballot on the issue could become a lose-lose: if the opposition boycotts, the coalition appears split; if the amendment passes, the electoral law would be sunk.

We are working with our allies to present a unitary amendment, perhaps imagining new proposals to allow Italians, as Fratelli d'Italia has always wanted, to be able to indicate their preferences.

The technical compromise under discussion would use blocked list heads and a single cross on pre-printed names, similar to the model used in Tuscany's regional elections.