Premier Giorgia Meloni said Wednesday
she would not give ground on her drive to introduce the direct
election of the Italian premier by the Italian people as part of
Constitutional reforms at a conference on the plans at the Lower
House.
"I think it is a mistake to approach these issues with an
ideological stance, above all linked to contingent interests,
which is the prevailing orientation in this debate," she said.
"It would be a mistake on the part of politics to give ground
and throw in the towel in the face of this attitude," said the
premier.
A biased interpretation of the Constitution must not privilege
one side, she added.
Meloni says the proposed reform to let Italians choose their
premiers directly will lead to stronger and more stable
governments in a country which has long been dogged by unstable
revolving door administrations.
Under the current system in Italy, parties engage in
government-formation talks after a general election and then the
coalition that forms a ruling majority in parliament agrees on a
figure to propose to the President of the Republic to become
premier.
That figure is not necessarily one of the politicians given by
the parties as their premier candidate during the election
campaign.
The centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) has slammed the
proposed reform as "dangerous", saying that it "weakens
parliament and the prerogatives of the President of the
Republic".
PD Secretary Elly Schlein has described it as "a distortion of
the Constitution and the parliamentary Republic".
"We will use every available dialectical tool in parliament to
oppose a project that we consider to be dangerous," she
continued.
Leading Constitutional experts Sabino Cassese and Antonio
Baldassarre have called on the government to abandon its plans
to introduce the direct election of the premier and begin a
process of constitutional reform that is shared by the
opposition.
The reform plans will not muster a required two thirds majority
in both chambers to obviate a referendum, experts say.
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