Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suffered a setback on Tuesday after a voting reform bill bitterly failed to pass in parliament by a single vote.
Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI), alongside other parties, had presented an electoral reform bill before Congress that aimed to introduce a mixed parliamentary voting system featuring locked lists of top candidates while allowing for up to three preference votes.
The chances intended to allow citizens to vote for individual candidates from party lists in elections for the first time in over three decades. The changes also reportedly sought to introduce promotional voting systems in Italy, with a seat bonus for the winning coalition.
Supporters of the bill sought to have the matter voted by Italian lawmakers in an open vote, the voting was ultimately carried through secret ballot. While lawmakers of the ruling center-right coalition led by Meloni had pledged their support to the bill, the motion shockingly failed to pass by a single vote — with 188s nays against 187 yays.
Italian outlets pointed out that the results suggests that some members of the ruling coalition voted agains the bill in the secret ballot.
Meloni addressed the outcome and narrow defeat of the electoral reform bill through a brief statement published on her official Facebook page, in which she stressed, “We gave it a shot. The Swamp won again.”
“We tried to reintroduce preferential voting into the electoral law after more than 30 years of closed party lists. We called for an open vote, where everyone would stand by their choice—but the opposition insisted on a secret ballot,” she wrote.
Meloni noted that although the results show that the Italian left and opposition lawmakers solidly voted against the bill, “several votes were also missing” from the ruling majority, and emphasized, “that is something we need to reflect on.”
“The amendment was defeated by a single vote. It was a missed opportunity for the Italian people, but it was right to try,” Meloni said, and added that the sight of the opposition’s celebrations, “as if they had won the World Cup, simply for preventing citizens from choosing their own Members of Parliament, says it all.”
As Meloni mentioned, Italian opposition lawmakers reportedly erupted in celebration at parliament once the bill narrowly failed to pass, with chants of “elections” and “resignation” of the Italian Prime Minister. Rai News reports that Elly Schlein, the leader of the leftist Democracy Party (PD), called upon Meloni to “go home and give the country a government capable of solving the problems facing Italians.”
“It was a vote against the arrogance of a female leader who, in order to defend her own power, was willing to crush that of other women,” Schlein reportedly said.
Similarly, lawmaker and former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of the leftist Five Star Movement party called for Meloni’s resignation — urging her to “go home.”
Speaking with SkyTG24 on Wednesday morning, Italian Minister for Parliamentary Relations Luca Ciriani, refuted the left’s calls for Meloni’s resignation and emphatically stated that the her government has no intention of backing down.
“We intend to see our term in office through to the end; we are proud to have brought stability to this country, something it had never known before. This is an electoral law that serves the country, including the center-left,” Ciriani said.