24.10.2026, Italy.
Over the summer, the majority patched up the legal holes in its own law, and the right’s poll rating has for the first time reached the cherished threshold.
On 24 October, Italy’s new electoral law comes into force – the very “Stabilicum” around which a positional war has been waged all year. Two months ago, it seemed that Giorgia Meloni’s government had built a machine with a manufacturing defect: its own majority had voted down a key amendment, lawyers counted several direct conflicts with the constitution in the text, and the right’s poll rating had fallen below the threshold it had set for itself. Since then, the picture has changed – and changed in Meloni’s favour.
What was fixed in the Senate
The law’s main vulnerability was the closed lists. On 14 July, the Chamber of Deputies, by a secret ballot with a one-vote margin, rejected the government amendment on preferences. Deputies from the majority were defending their own seats – under closed lists, a parliamentarian’s fate is decided not at the polling station but in the office where the list is drawn up. But closed lists are precisely what the Constitutional Court used to strike down the electoral law in 2014, ruling that a voter deprived of the ability to choose a person is essentially not choosing at all.
In the Senate, the amendment was reintroduced – and passed. In the final text, the first name on a list still gets in automatically, but voters may give up to three preferences to the other candidates, and when several marks are made, alternation between men and women is mandatory. The law’s weakest point has been removed.
The same body eliminated another objection: under the original version, the votes of allies that failed to reach 3% were not counted at all towards the coalition total, meaning a bloc that actually won more votes could on paper end up smaller than its rival. A Senate amendment established the opposite – the sum from which the cherished threshold is calculated includes the votes of all coalition lists, including those that did not pass the barrier. It will become clear below that this correction was not merely technical.
8 October: the revolt did not repeat itself
The final vote in the Chamber of Deputies took place on 8 October – again by secret ballot, that is, again with the possibility for the discontented to remain anonymous. This time, no one was found willing: 227 votes in favour, 164 against. Before that, the government had three times tabled a confidence motion – on the first three articles, that is, on the voting mechanisms and the carving up of constituencies themselves.
The opposition raised placards in the chamber bearing the word “fraud” – a reference to the 1953 “scam law”, with which the Christian Democrats tried to secure themselves a guaranteed majority. The majority prefers the name “Stabilicum”; the opposition, “Melonellum”.
On 9 October, President Sergio Mattarella signed the law. Without a single written remark – although this is precisely how the Quirinal has signalled doubts in the past. The head of state chose not to state his attitude towards a law that devalues his own prerogative to appoint the prime minister.
Three questions for the Constitutional Court
The first is the Senate. The constitution requires senators to be elected on a regional basis: each region gets a quota of seats, and votes are counted within it. But the bonus of 35 Senate seats is awarded on the national result. The authors have never explained how to reconcile the one with the other.
The second is the size of the bonus itself. The Constitutional Court has twice ruled on similar constructions: in 2014 it rejected a bonus without a minimum threshold; in 2017 it accepted a bonus that takes a winner from 40% of the vote to 54% of seats. Hence the majority’s defence: there is a threshold, and the proportion is roughly the same. But critics object that the court spoke of admissibility “under certain conditions”, and that 70 deputies and 35 senators is too generous a bonus to be considered moderate.
The third point is the obligation on a coalition to name its candidate for prime minister in advance. Formally, the name does not appear on the ballot and does not bind the president to anything. In practice, together with the bonus, it amounts to a prime ministership introduced by ordinary law, bypassing a constitutional reform – the very one Meloni failed to carry through by direct means.
The lawsuits are being prepared by the “Network for Free and Equal Voting”, which has united constitutionalists and parliamentary opposition groups. There are six points: the bonus, the national count for the Senate, the procedure for allocating seats, gender alternation, the designation of the prime minister and the number of signatures required to register lists. They intend to file on 24 October, the day the law comes into force, and to finish by the 26th.
Vote now, check later
The Constitutional Court will consider the lawsuits in the first months of 2027. The elections are expected around the same time – most likely in the spring, that is, earlier than the natural end of the term, which would have fallen in late autumn. The president of the court was blunt: whether the court manages to rule before the vote depends above all on the date of the election. And the date is set by the very person being scrutinised.
The precedent is known to all participants. Italy voted three times under the “Porcellum” – in 2006, 2008 and 2013 – and only after the third election was it declared unconstitutional.
Two parliaments and several governments were formed under rules that subsequently failed the test, but no one, of course, went back to revise their results.
The arithmetic has changed
In August, the monopolisation machine looked defective from another angle. The 42% threshold had been calibrated in the spring to a poll rating of 43–46%, and by the start of August the centre-right was polling 41.6% – below its own barrier. The conclusion suggested itself: without Roberto Vannacci’s “National Future”, the coalition does not clear the threshold; with him, it takes everything.
By mid-October, the picture is different. According to the Supermedia YouTrend/AGI aggregate of 15 October, the centre-right is polling 42.9% – that is, for the first time in a long while it has crossed its own threshold. Brothers of Italy has risen to 27.2%, Forza Italia holds 7.4%, and Salvini’s League is up to 6.0%. Vannacci, meanwhile, is not growing but declining for the second week running – 7.2%, and by the same estimate Forza Italia has overtaken him. The broad left bloc polls 43.1%, but it is still a sum, not an alliance: the Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement and the Greens have still not created a single list. And yet, to win the bonus, it is not enough to take 42% – you also have to come first. Right now the right has cleared the threshold but is running second.
And the most curious thing is where the increase came from. Over a week the coalition grew by almost two points, although none of its parties gained that much. The reason is different: another party has joined the right – the Sicilian list “The South Calls the North” of former Messina mayor Cateno De Luca. On its own it polls just 1.1%, but previously those votes were counted separately, and now they are added to the right’s votes – and it is precisely they that lifted the coalition above the threshold. Next in line is Luigi Marattin’s liberal democrats, who have also opened up towards the right: with his 1.4%, the bloc reaches 44.3% and does without Vannacci.
This is where that “technical” Senate amendment came into play. Since the votes of allies below 3% now count towards the total, every one-percent list becomes a real asset for the coalition rather than a decoration. They were fixing a legal vulnerability – and got a tool for coalition-building. Meloni is no longer obliged to negotiate with the general she intended to absorb: the required percentage can be assembled from a scattering of small partners, each of whom means nothing on his own and therefore bargains far more cheaply.
The outcome
In two months the government did exactly what was to be expected of it: it closed the gaps the lawyers had pointed to, steered the law through both chambers, obtained the president’s signature and forced it into force before the court has its say.
But this construction has a thin margin of safety. The 42% threshold must be cleared in both chambers at once, and the gap with the left bloc is now two-tenths of a percent. The difference between a monopoly on parliament and pure proportional representation, where you have to negotiate with everyone, fits within the statistical margin of error.
Italy will get the answer to the main question in the spring – and will get it before the Constitutional Court answers its own.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
