Italy approves Meloni's election overhaul as opposition cries "scam"

Italy's parliament has approved the most sweeping overhaul of the country's electoral system in a generation, handing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni a major political victory — and setting the stage for a constitutional fight over rules her opponents brand a "scam." The Chamber of Deputies gave final approval on Thursday by 227 votes to 164 in a secret ballot, after months of heated debate, according to the BBC's reporting on the vote.

The law — dubbed "Stabilicum" by its supporters and "Melonellum" by its critics — replaces Italy's mixed electoral system with fully proportional representation, then layers on a powerful majority bonus designed to turn narrow victories into stable governments. With a general election due by late 2027, the vote was as much about who governs next as about how Italians vote.

What the new rules change

Under the current system, around two-thirds of MPs are elected through proportional representation while the remainder are chosen in first-past-the-post constituencies — a component Reuters reported analysts believed could actually favour the opposition. The new law abolishes the constituency element entirely.

In its place comes the "majority prize": whichever party or pre-election alliance wins the largest share of the national vote, provided it clears 42%, receives 105 additional seats — 70 in the Chamber of Deputies and 35 in the Senate — effectively manufacturing a parliamentary majority. Coalitions must also spell out their governing programme and name their candidate for prime minister before the election, a transparency requirement Meloni's allies say will give voters real clarity.

Giovanni Donzelli, a senior lawmaker from Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, called the law "a revolution," telling AFP that "Italians will finally have real weight with their vote, as they will choose the coalition, the platform, and the candidate for prime minister." Meloni herself hailed it as a step toward greater voter choice, saying Italians would be able to vote "for a party, coalition, governing program, prime ministerial candidate and, once again, their own lawmakers."

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Why the opposition calls it a scam

The centre-left opposition sees something else entirely: an incumbent rewriting the rules to stay in power. During the debate, Democratic Party and Five Star MPs held up placards reading "No to the scam," and party leaders accused the government of flouting democracy by forcing through new voting rules on the eve of an election, against the opposition's will.

Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein, who protested in the chamber ahead of the vote, told colleagues: "Go ahead and change the electoral law, we will win in any case under any voting system." Giuseppe Conte, the former prime minister who leads the Five Star Movement, was blunter, calling the law "a mess, a convoluted scheme, devised solely to find a formula to gain an advantage in the upcoming elections."

!Historic engraving of the debating chamber of Italy's Chamber of Deputies at Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome. The Chamber of Deputies at Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome, in a 19th-century engraving. Credit: Emma Perodi / Wikimedia Commons, public domain

The criticism is not purely partisan. Legal scholars note that the majority bonus risks distorting the link between votes and seats, and that Italy's Constitutional Court has previously struck down similar provisions in earlier electoral laws. The opposition has pledged to challenge the reform before the court once it takes effect — a process that could force Meloni's government to rewrite the system before the next election.

A confidence test for Italy's longest-serving government

The vote was also a test of Meloni's authority. She had told her governing coalition that she would resign if the reform failed — a threat that would likely have triggered early elections — turning Thursday's ballot into a confidence vote on her leadership as well as on the law itself.

That gamble underlines her political strength. Meloni's right-wing government, in office since 2022, is already the longest-serving administration in Italy's post-war history, an achievement in a country notorious for revolving-door governments. After the vote she wrote on X: "Stable governments and greater participation mean more continuity, more accountability and a greater ability to provide concrete answers to Italians," adding that "whoever wins must be able to govern."

Meloni has argued the rules are designed to promote stability "regardless of its political colour" — a point her supporters return to when accused of gerrymandering the system for the right. As one recent profile of Meloni's political brand on Verity noted, she has made longevity and institutional credibility central to her pitch.

What it means for the 2027 election

Neither the right nor the left is expected to secure an outright parliamentary majority at the next election, which must be held by late 2027 — and that is precisely the scenario the majority prize is built for. Under the new rules, a coalition clearing 42% would be handed the seats needed to govern, while one falling short could face the same fragmentation that has felled dozens of Italian governments.

The reform is widely viewed as an attempt to strengthen Italy's political system while improving the electoral prospects of Meloni's centre-right coalition, which celebrated its record as the country's longest-serving government since the Second World War just last month. Whether the Constitutional Court lets it stand will determine whether the 2027 contest is fought on Meloni's terms — or on rules written by someone else.

The approval also lands amid a shifting European political landscape, from Germany's shifting parliamentary arithmetic to the continent's broader battles over democratic norms. Read more on Verity's homepage and learn about our editorial mission.