Senate voting underway on election law

(ANSA) - Rome, January 21 - Voting got underway on the floor of the Senate on the government's bill for a new electoral system, the so-called Italicum, in a tense climate on Wednesday.
    The first vote saw an amendment presented by a Northern League lawmaker rejected with 188 nays, 72 yeas and several abstentions. The government is trying to pass a bill, aiming at giving Italy stronger, stabler governments, in the Senate before lawmakers from both houses of parliament join regional representatives to start voting for a new president next week.
    But the bill is encountering resistance, including from a minority within Renzi's own centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
    The Italicum, which has cleared the Lower House, is intended to replace the dysfunctional system, the so-called pigsty law, that contributed to the inconclusive outcome to 2013's general election and was subsequently declared unconstitutional.
    The Italicum only applies to the Lower House as the Senate is set to be transformed into a leaner assembly of local-government representatives with minimal lawmaking powers as part of a Constitutional reform bill.
    The Italicum gives bonus seats to the party that wins over 40% of the vote to ensure it has a working majority in parliament.
    There will be a run-off vote for a package of bonus seats worth 15%, if no one coalition reaches the 40% threshold in the first round of voting.
    Silvio Berlusconi's opposition centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party, is backing the Italicum, although, like Renzi, the three-time premier is facing internal opposition to this stance.
    In the PD, a group of 29 Senators have threatened to rebel over the part of the Italicum that gives parties the power to say who will be the first person voted into parliament in 100 constituencies for the Lower House. Many lawmakers says votes all the candidates on any given party list should be elected in the order of the preferences voters express on their ballot papers. The fact that the old electoral system had so-called blocked lists of candidates appointed by the parties with no room for voter preferences, has been blamed for distancing the public from the political class.
    The government has said it is not worried about the bill being scuppered by a rebellion.
    "We have the numbers (in parliament) on our side," said Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi. "We'll take the floor (of the Senate) with tranquility.
    The important thing now is to be quick, after eight years of waiting for a good election law".