Italian parliament starts debate on electoral reform bill

The Italian parliament began debating an electoral bill on Wednesday, paving the way to a reform seen as a top priority in the country.

The debate, which started Wednesday morning in the lower house, where deputies are due to examine and vote it clause by clause. After that, the bill will pass through the same procedure in the Senate.

According to local media, since around 200 amendments were presented, the examination could last several days. The final vote in the lower house may come as soon as Friday.

The reform is seen as a prime concern since the Highest Court declared the electoral law partially unconstitutional last year. The current law had also been blamed for producing unclear majorities in parliament and consequently feeble cabinets, as the new law maily aims at avoiding future electoral deadlock which occurred in the election last year.

According to local media, the newly debated bill proposed to give a premium up to 55 percent of the seats to the party or coalition that gains at least 37 percent of the votes. In case no party or alliance obtains that score, the two major forces or alliances would run in a second round.

The bill would also raise the thresholds for entry in parliament at 4.5 percent for each party in a coalition, or at 8 percent for any party that runs alone.

The approval of the bill is seen as quite granted, but tensions remained high during the debate. Smaller parties were particularly critical of it, for fear the higher thresholds for entry in parliament would jeopardize their survival.