In Italy, Everyone Is a Winner: Recapping the Referendum Vote & Regional Elections
by Michela DeVito | Sept. 29, 2020
COVID might still be with us, but politics never stops — least of all in Italy. The country just voted in a constitutional referendum to reduce the size of its parliament, while regional elections soured the ambitions of Matteo Salvini’s conservative coalition.
Currently, Italy has 945 representatives, made up of 315 senators and 630 Members of Parliament (MP). It has one of the largest parliamentary bodies in the world and is second in Europe only to the United Kingdom. The referendum took place from September 20 to 21 to decide whether the number of seats should be cut to 600. Almost 70% of Italians voted in favor of the measure.
The referendum is the brainchild of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), which has repeatedly lobbied for the change. Proponents of the “Yes” vote believe that the reduction in seats will in turn lower red tape and cut government costs, while opponents argue that savings will not actually be reduced by much and that the move will weaken Italian democracy. Nevertheless, Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and former leader of M5S, called the results “historic” and proclaimed that Italy can “go back to having a normal parliament, with fewer privileges and 345 fewer seats.” Although M5S performed poorly in the regional elections, the success of the referendum vote was seen as a political victory for the party.
Regional elections were also held across the country on September 21. Matteo Salvini’s coalition of Lega Nord (Lega), Brothers of Italy, and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia hoped to make large gains in the regional elections, but in most cases did not win center-left strongholds. The most significant race, for the governorship of Tuscany, remained in the hands of the center-left Democratic Party (PD), as it had for the last 50 years. This was a blow to Salvini, who hoped to take the seat from PD as a symbolic victory. The northern regions of Veneto and Lombardy remained in the hands of Lega, while PD comfortably held onto Campania in the south. In another southern region, Puglia, the election had been viewed as a close race given recent polling but PD ultimately retained power.
In the central Marche region, the Giorgia Meloni-led Brothers of Italy party declared victory in the governorship race over the incumbent PD. Meloni has been seen as a rising star on the far right, taking away some influence from Salvini. After a failed power grab in 2019 and what many Italians view as a haphazard response to Italy’s COVID emergency, Salvini has not been able to completely regain the power he once held. Lega has also lost regional elections in Emilia-Romagna, another left-leaning stronghold, in January 2020. Their loss in Tuscany only cements the stability of PD in some regions and Meloni’s rise.
What next for Italy? In the aftermath of the referendum, political maneuvering and reorganization will surely have to be dealt with to reduce parliamentary seats. For the wider political landscape, much remains the same and many Italians continue to support their preferred parties from before the onset of the pandemic. Despite the victory in Marche, it appears that the right has not made the gains they hoped for, but nonetheless has eaten into some of the left’s traditional bastions of support. The voting was also a win for the “new normal”; election watchers thought there would be low turnout due to continuing COVID-related concerns, but there was a relatively high turnout at around 54% for the constitutional referendum. All in all, everyone was a winner in the elections. Only time will tell what impact they have on Italy’s political trajectory and post-COVID recovery.
Michela DeVito is a first-year graduate student in the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She is from Brooklyn, New York, and attended Cornell University for her undergraduate studies. Her interests include international business diplomacy, transatlantic relations and EU/Italian politics. She has previously interned at the U.S. Consulate in Milan and served as a corporate paralegal at a law firm in New York. She can be found on twitter.
