US embassy cable - 05ROME3442

C O N F I D E N T I A L  ROME 003442 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/15/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, IT, ITALIAN POLITICS 
SUBJECT: ITALY: CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES PASSES ELECTORAL REFORM 
LAW 
 
REF: ROME 3376 
 
Classified By: Political Minister Counselor David Pearce for 
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
1. (C) SUMMARY. PM Berlusconi's Center-Right coalition moved 
an electoral reform bill through the important Chamber of 
Deputies on October 13 in a vote that ended in an opposition 
walkout and mass abstention.  The bill is widely expected to 
pass the Senate next week and become law.  The change heralds 
a return to a proportional voting system, originally scrapped 
in favor a mixed majoritarian/proportional system after a 
1993 public referendum.  The main effect of the law will be 
to strengthen the role of political party leaders in 
candidate selection nationwide.  Italy does not have a strong 
tradition of party primaries.  The change may improve the 
electoral chances of PM Berlusconi's Center-Right coalition 
slightly, but it also satisfies concerns of some Center-Right 
coalition members who believe the Center-Right will lose the 
Spring 2006 elections.  Union of the Christian Democrats of 
the Center (UDC) leaders, currently allied with Berlusconi, 
aspire to recreate a coalition of the center and are 
preparing for what they see as the probable victory and 
subsequent collapse of a Center-left coalition led by Romano 
Prodi.  Opposition parties call the electoral reform 
"undemocratic" though the parties of the Center-Left are 
actually less affected by the reform than Prodi, who heads 
the Center-Left coalition but has no formal party 
affiliation.  The new law will likely force Prodi either to 
found his own party or to join an existing one.  END SUMMARY. 
 
----------------------------- 
RETURN TO PROPORTIONAL VOTING 
----------------------------- 
 
2. (U) The Chamber of Deputies approved electoral reform 
legislation on October 13.  Under the new election law, 
parliamentarians will be elected according to a proportional 
system.  Italians will vote party lists for both the Chamber 
of Deputies and the Senate with the number of seats in each 
chamber allocated to the parties based on the percentage of 
votes received.  A party must receive at least four percent 
of all votes to receive seats.  The threshold is reduced to 
two percent if the party is formally part of a coalition that 
receives at least 10 percent of total votes.  There will be a 
"governing premium"  for the winning coalition in order to 
increase governing stability.  If the winning coalition does 
not obtain at least 340 seats in the Chamber of Deputies (out 
of a total 630) it will automatically be given 340 seats. 
The remaining seats will be divided among opposition parties 
on a proportional basis.  In the Senate, the governing 
coalition will be given at least 170 seats out of a total of 
315.  As before, there are 12 seats in the Chamber and 6 in 
the Senate elected directly by Italians living abroad.  The 
leader of the largest party in the winning coalition will be 
the presumptive prime ministerial candidate.  However, this 
cannot be stated explicitly in the law since the selection of 
prime minister is constitutionally the prerogative of the 
President of the Republic. 
 
3. (U) The legislation will pass to the Senate for 
consideration next week.  No amendments are expected from the 
Senate.  If the bill, in fact, passes unamended, then it goes 
to the President for signature and becomes law. 
 
------------------------------- 
A RETURN TO THE PREVIOUS SYSTEM 
------------------------------- 
 
4. (SBU) Italy's last significant electoral reform occurred 
in 1994 after voters overwhelmingly supported a national 
referendum proposing the abolition of the proportional 
system, which had been in place for the entire post-war 
period.  Party leaders, wanting to respond to the referendum, 
but afraid to lose their influence, developed a mixed system 
in which 75 percent of parliamentary seats were voted 
directly in local constituencies and 25 percent by proportion 
from nationwide lists.  Among other effects, the system 
encouraged the development of center-left and center-right 
coalitions, and many observers credit the reform with 
creating more stable governments.  Berlusconi has served the 
longest consecutive period of any post-war Italian Prime 
Minster. 
 
-------------------------------------- 
WHY THE CENTER-RIGHT WANTED THE CHANGE 
-------------------------------------- 
 
5. (SBU) Infighting in the Center-Right coalition has spilled 
out into the press for the last several months.  Union of the 
Christian Democrats of the Center (UDC) party leaders Marco 
Follini and Pier Ferdinando Casini called openly for PM 
Silvio Berlusconi to step aside as leader of the Center-Right 
coalition and agitated strongly for electoral reform.  At the 
same time, Northern League politicians said they would not 
support electoral reform until after the coalition passes a 
law supporting devolution of powers from the central 
government to the regions.  Coalition leaders began to 
speculate about the need for their own primary election and 
rumors circulated that the UDC would soon leave the coalition. 
 
6. (C) The electoral reform will accomplish several 
objectives for the Center-Right coalition.  Opposition party 
leader Pier Fassino (DS) told Poloff that the Center-Right is 
so divided that they could never determine how to distribute 
future seats among themselves.  He said this reform was 
necessary since it provides a clear method to distribute 
seats.  More importantly, the Center-Right coalition has a 
"branding" problem, according to many observers.  In the 
previous mixed system, the coalition symbol generally 
received less total votes in the direct component of the 
election than the sum of the votes for the individual parties 
in the proportional component of the election.  In a purely 
proportional system, the Center-Right coalition, through 
votes for individual parties, will gain a few percentage 
points more of total votes cast. 
 
------------------- 
REMAKING THE CENTER 
------------------- 
 
7. (C) UDC politicians have been vocal in their desire to 
recreate the tradition of the Christian Democrat party that 
ruled Italy for most of the post-war period--until corruption 
scandals and electoral reform brought it down.  The 
proportional system weakens the importance of the coalition 
system (REFTEL), since individual parliamentarians will owe 
their seat to the party more than to the coalition.  Most 
political observers maintain that UDC leaders Marco Follini 
and Pier Ferdinando Casini are betting that Romano Prodi's 
Center-Left coalition will win next spring's national 
elections, but will fall relatively soon afterward because of 
inherent instabilities in the center-left.  The UDC then 
hopes to cobble together the more conservative elements of 
the center-left with his party and any defections from Forza 
Italia.  Many of these party members and their voters were 
once part of the Christian Democrat Party. 
 
------------------------------ 
PRODI AND CENTER-LEFT CRY FOUL 
------------------------------ 
 
8. (C) Center-Left parliamentarians walked out of the Chamber 
and abstained from the vote after their attempts at 
filibuster failed.  Various party leaders have called the 
bill "undemocratic," and Fassino criticized the Center-Right 
as desperately looking for ways to hold on to power.  The 
electoral reform is a potential blow to Center-Left coalition 
leader Romano Prodi.  Prodi does not have a political party, 
and may have to either found one or run at the head of a list 
of one of the existing coalition partners.  Also, by making 
the parties more independent of the coalition, it weakens his 
already tenuous hold on a very divided Center-Left coalition. 
 Political commentators say the electoral reform law will 
overshadow the October 16 Center-Left primaries, which one 
Daisy party officials told Poloff are meaningless with a 
proportional system. 
 
9. (SBU) Non-partisan critics have observed that political 
parties are traditionally very strong in Italy, and that this 
reform will strengthen them even further.  Many also 
criticize the move as "undemocratic" and a "move back to the 
First Republic."  Under the system in place since 1994, the 
coalition picks who runs in each of the electoral districts, 
but the eventual winner is voted directly by a local 
constituency in 75 percent of the cases.  This creates a 
direct link between the parliamentarian and his voter base. 
With the reform, people will vote a national party list 
chosen by the party leadership.  As such, since there is not 
a strong tradition of party primaries for candidate 
selection, the parliamentarian will be more accountable to 
the party than to the voting public. 
 
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COMMENT 
------- 
 
10. (C) COMMENT:  If it passes the Senate (as it probably 
will), this electoral reform law is not likely to 
significantly affect the overall outcome of national 
elections next spring.  At best, the Center-Right might 
squeeze a few extra percentage points out of the reform.  The 
more significant impacts are: (1) It should calm waters 
inside the Center-Right coalition, ending the debate over a 
change in "coalition leadership" and satisfying a key UDC 
demand; (2) It may weaken Romano Prodi's already tenuous hold 
over his coalition; and (3) It clears away some of the 
obstacles for the parties born from the former Christian 
Democrat power base to recreate the tradition of governing 
from the "Center."  Many political actors are betting the 
Center-Left will win next year's elections and then fall 
because of internal discord.  The UDC and others are already 
positioning themselves to pick up the pieces if Berlusconi's 
Center-Right government loses next spring, and is succeeded 
by a short-lived Center-Left coalition.  END COMMENT. 
BORG 
 
 
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 2005ROME03442 - Classification: CONFIDENTIAL