Putting aside the issue of preferences, regarding the electoral law the opposition’s psychodrama of the day is the collection of signatures for political forces not present in Parliament. Yesterday the Senate Chamber approved – with 87 votes in favor and amid protests from the center-left groups – amendment 1,321 presented by Antonella Zedda, of Fratelli d’Italia, which effectively rewrites the “anti-fragmentation” rule, which in the version approved by the Chamber provided for excluding from the count for the calculation of the majority bonus the lists in coalition below 3% of the votes (except for the “best loser”).
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Since this is an implicit but effectively “mobile” threshold, for clarity the center-right “sherpas” decided, in order to maintain a rule to counter the fragmentation of lists, to intervene on the number of signatures required, for political formations not present in Parliament, to be present in the elections.
THE ONORATO ISSUE
Subscriptions increase, for each electoral district, from the current 1,500 to 6,000. With exemptions and waivers for political groups or parliamentary components already present in the Chamber and Senate (groups present from the beginning of the legislature in both Chambers and those with representation in at least one of the assemblies as of December 31, 2025, are exempt. Those formed later, like Futuro Nazionale, manage with a maximum of 2,000 signatures).
The parties of the Broad Field, having accepted the defeat on preferences – “an attempted trap that ended in nothing,” as defined by the Senate President, Ignazio La Russa – began to protest. The most agitated is Giuseppe Conte, who appealed to the Head of State: “This is what the illiberal and undemocratic people in government do. It is a shame. I invite President Mattarella to block this rule built to protect the caste already in Parliament.”
A similar pull on the jacket of the President of the Republic was made by Rifondazione Comunista: “Only a government of fascists could approve an amendment that raises to at least 450,000 the number of signatures required to run in the elections.” Conte offered to help the “bushes”: “The M5S is at your disposal for collecting signatures. The Movement is willing to do its part.” This activism has a very simple explanation: the fear that the number of signatures required will become an insurmountable obstacle for Progetto Civico, the formation of Alessandro Onorato on which the noble father of the PD, but great advisor of Conte himself, Goffredo Bettini, is working. Not by chance Onorato yesterday appealed to Giorgia Meloni, calling the Zedda amendment “a fraud,” an “anti-constitutional rule. It means you imagine this country is a dictatorship.”
In the evening, the PD secretary, Elly Schlein, also made herself heard, denouncing the introduction of “an exorbitant number of signatures, which limits democratic access to the next elections. One more reason to build a wall.”
THE CALENDAR
The Senate will reconvene to vote on the amendments on Monday, September 14 at 11:30. On the agenda is the examination of article 2. The following day the final vote on the law is scheduled (by open ballot). The text, having been modified, will then have to return to the Chamber for examination, where it has been scheduled for Monday, September 28. The Prime Minister rejects the opposition’s accusations. “Italians will have the opportunity to choose the coalition, the premier, the program, the parliamentarian when they go to vote in the next political elections and I am proud that this was done by the center-right,” Meloni said. As for the center-left’s criticisms on preferences, she reiterates that they are not credible: “They have been missing in this nation for the election of Parliament for over thirty years and no more than a month ago the left was celebrating with champagne in the Chamber for having sunk the amendment.”
