By Angelo Amante and Giuseppe Fonte
ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s cabinet was set to propose on Friday a ban on technocrat-led governments, a draft law bill seen by Reuters showed, as part of a constitutional reform to introduce the direct election of the prime minister.
Italy has had almost 70 governments since World War Two, more than twice the number in Britain and Germany.
Repeated attempts to produce a more robust system, the last in 2016, have always foundered amid myriad, competing visions and, given the steps needed, there is no guarantee it will become law this time.
The right-wing administration of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who took office last year, made ending the country’s chronic political instability strengthening the bond between governments and voters a key policy plank.
The draft said the prime minister would be elected for a period of five years and the coalition supporting the winning candidate will be given at least 55% of seats, to make sure it has a workable majority in both houses of parliament.
It also states that if the elected premier is unable to carry on, the president can only reappoint the outgoing prime minister or pick another lawmaker who is part of the ruling majority.
If such government fails to win a confidence vote, the head of state has to dissolve parliament and call an early election, the draft says.
If approved, it would make it impossible for presidents to appoint outside technocrats to run governments, a power they have repeatedly used to end political stalemate.
Meloni’s predecessor Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, led the last technocrat government after being called in by President Sergio Mattarella in 2021 to end a political crisis with COVID then battering Italy.
After cabinet approval, the proposal will be sent to parliament and undergo a convoluted approval process which makes it far from certain that it will be passed in its current form.
Any change to the constitution needs to secure a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament – something that is hard to envisage given the splintered nature of Italian politics. Failing that, it can be passed by a referendum.
The main opposition groups, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and the 5-Star Movement, have already spoken out against the plan. Only the small centrist Italia Viva party of former premier Matteo Renzi said it might back the government.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante and Giuseppe Fonte; Editing by Alison Williams)
