Constitutional referendum in Italy 2020

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Constitutional referendum in Italy 2020
Votes in%
Yes
  
 69.96
No
  
 04/30

At the constitutional referendum in Italy in 2020 on September 20 and 21, 2020, the downsizing of the two chambers of the Italian parliament was voted. The referendum originally scheduled for March 29, 2020 has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic  .

The constitutional amendment to be voted on provided for a reduction in the number of elected members of the Chamber of Deputies from 630 to 400 and of the Senate from 315 to 200.

The constitutional amendment was adopted by a clear majority.

background

According to Article 138 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic , constitutional amendments must be decided by both chambers of parliament twice with an interval of at least three months, and the majority of members must approve the second vote. If the change is not approved in the second vote in both chambers with the votes of at least two thirds of the members, 500,000 eligible voters, one fifth of the members of a parliamentary chamber or the regional councils of five regions can request a referendum within three months of the publication of the constitutional amendment. The constitutional amendment will only come into force if there is a majority of valid votes in the referendum.

In the second vote in the Senate on reducing the size of the parliamentary chambers on July 11, 2019, a two-thirds majority was missed. 71 senators called for a referendum. On January 28, 2020, the President set the voting date on March 29, 2020.

On March 5, 2020, the Italian government announced that the referendum would be postponed because of the coronavirus epidemic. On July 17, 2020, the President of the Republic set the new date of September 20 and 21, 2020. At the same time, there are two by-elections for parliament, regional elections in several regions and local elections in parts of the country.

Intended constitutional amendment

Articles 56 and 57 of the Constitution determine the number of members to be elected since 1963 as follows:

Chamber of Deputies : 630 members, including twelve for Italians living abroad since 2001

Senate : 315 members, including

  • one for the Aosta Valley , two for Molise and at least seven for each other region ,
  • six for Italians living abroad (since 2001).

In future, the number of elected members should be:

Chamber of Deputies : 400 members, eight of them for Italians abroad

Senate : 200 members, including

  • one for the Aosta Valley, two for Molise, at least three for each other region and each autonomous province (autonomous provinces are Bolzano - South Tyrol and Trento ),
  • four for Italians living abroad.

Former presidents and up to five persons appointed by the president join the Senate as senators for life . The planned reform will not change this. An editorial change removes a linguistic ambiguity in Article 59 of the Constitution and clarifies that there may only be five appointed senators for life and that not every president has the right to appoint five senators for life.

The downsizing will take effect at the end of the parliamentary term of the Parliamentary Chamber that was running when the constitutional amendment came into force, but no earlier than 60 days after it came into force.

Voting question

The voting question is:

Approvate il testo della legge costituzionale concernente “Modifiche agli articoli 56, 57 e 59 della Costituzione in materia di riduzione del numero dei parlamentari”, approvato dal Parlamento e pubblicato nella Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica italiana - Series generale - n. 240 del 12 ottobre ?

In German:

Agree to the text of the Constitutional Law “Amendment of Articles 56, 57 and 59 of the Constitution to reduce the number of parliamentarians”, approved by Parliament and published in the Official Gazette of the Italian Republic - General Series - No. 240 of October 12, 2019 ?

Attitude of the parties

The proposal to amend the constitution was introduced in parliament under the yellow-green coalition ( five-star movement and Lega ) of the Conte I government . In the first three votes, the proposal found the support of M5S, Lega, Fratelli d'Italia and parts of Forza Italia . After the coalition broke and the new Conte II government was formed, the proposal was also supported by the Democratic Party , Liberi e Uguali and Italia Viva in the fourth and final parliamentary vote . Only 14 members of the Chamber out of 549 parliamentarians voted against, two abstained.

This large majority crumbled by the scheduled voting date in September 2020. Resistance to the constitutional amendment arose in almost all parties. The Democrats (PD), led by Nicola Zingaretti , voted in an election of the party presidium in early September with a large majority for the change. However, some prominent members of the party announced that they would vote “no” in the referendum, including former President of the Chamber of Deputies Laura Boldrini , Romano Prodi , Arturo Parisi and Rosy Bindi . Matteo Salvini from the Lega announced that he would support the cut in parliamentarians in the referendum, after the party had always voted for it in all parliamentary votes. Contrary to this statement, some party members, such as the Lombard government president Attilio Fontana or the deputy party secretary Giancarlo Giorgetti, announced that they would vote against the constitutional amendment. Silvio Berlusconi criticized the proposed constitutional amendment as half-baked and populist. Forza Italia did not recommend voting. The group chairman of FI in the Chamber of Deputies, Mariastella Gelmini , announced that she would vote for the change, while the group chairman in the Senate, Anna Maria Bernini , would vote “no”. Matteo Renzi from Italia Viva did not recommend voting either. Without a corresponding change in the electoral law, in his view the constitutional change would be pure demagoguery. For the five-star movement, reducing the number of parliamentarians has been one of the most important reforms ever since it was founded. Accordingly, Beppe Grillo and Luigi Di Maio left no doubt that the movement would vote “yes” in the referendum. Nevertheless, some M5S parliamentarians also announced that they would vote “no”. While Giorgia Meloni from Fratelli d'Italia pleaded to vote “yes” in the referendum, Emma Bonino from Più Europa and Carlo Calenda from Azione campaigned for no votes. The Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d'Italia , among others, spoke out against the reform .

Critics see the desired reduction in the number of parliamentarians restrict the representativeness of the citizens and strengthen the power of the parties. The reform would be at the expense of the small parties and the influence of the party leaders on the parliamentarians would increase. Without the corresponding amendment to the electoral law, there is a risk that the work in parliament could be blocked because, for example, parliamentary work would have to be carried out by fewer parliamentarians. It is a populist reform that takes into account the widespread anti-political sentiment among the population. In addition, the savings announced by the proponents are negligible and would only make up about 0.007% of the budget.

Result

The constitutional referendum was adopted.

Eligible voters votes cast Yes No
50,956,057 26,050,231
(participation: 51.12%)
valid votes: 25,605,084
invalid votes: 445,147 		17,913,055
(69.96%) 		7,692,029
(30.04%)

In all regions, the majority of the electorate voted in favor of the constitutional amendment. The highest agreement was in Molise with 79.89%, the lowest in Friuli Venezia Giulia with 59.57%. The Italians abroad also voted for the constitutional amendment with a clear majority. With a turnout of 23.30 percent, 78.24% voted for and 21.76% against. Italians living in Germany voted yes with 84.28%.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Results Italy + Italian Abroad Referendum , on elezioni.interno.gov.it
  2. ↑ a b Decree of the President of the Republic of January 28, 2020
  3. ↑ Italian government: La riduzione del numero dei parliamentary
  4. ↑ a b Gazetta Uffiziale (Generale series n.240 del 12-10-2019): Text of the Constitutional Law
  5. ↑ Italian Interior Ministry: Rinviato il referendum del 29 marzo 2020
  6. ^ RAI: Mattarella firma dl Referendum e suppletive per il 20 e il 21 September
  7. ↑ Study Service of Parliament: RIDUZIONE DEL NUMERO DEI PARLAMENTARI , page 11 (PDF; 1120 KB)
  8. ↑ Chamber of Deputies: PROPOSTA DI LEGGE COSTITUZIONALE (1585-B) , Art. 4 (PDF; 149 KB)
  9. ↑ a b Renato Benedetto: Referendum costituzionale del 2020 sul taglio dei parlamentari: come funziona e le ragioni del Sì e del No. In: corriere.it. September 20, 2020, accessed on September 21, 2020 (Italian).
  10. ↑ Gabriele Genah: Referendum su taglio parliamentari: i partiti per il Sì e quelli per il No. In: corriere.it. September 17, 2020, accessed on September 21, 2020 (Italian).
  11. ↑ Emanuele Lauria: Taglio parlamentari, vademecum sul referendum: le ragioni del Sì, source del No e le posizioni dei partiti. In: repubblica.it. September 18, 2020, accessed September 20, 2020 (Italian).
  12. ↑ Foreign Italian result , on elezioni.interno.gov.it
  13. ^ Constitutional amendment results for Germany , on elezioni.interno.gov.it