Wednesday,
July 25, 2007
Italians Want Political Change- A Two Party
System
The
ANNOTICO Report
Be
careful what you Wish for... As I see it, the
number of parties in
On
the other hand, for instance in the
Also,
with only two parties I'm not convinced that Lobbyists and therefore
Corporations will be easier able to set the Agenda as they do in the
Italians
Want Fewer Political Parties
Peninsula On-line -
REUTERS
July 25,
2007
Two vans delivered the
petition to a court for verification yesterday. The petition has far more than
the half-million signatures needed under Italian law to force a referendum.
"Parliament, with the
referendum a loaded pistol at its head, has a few months to fulfil
the will of the people," said Infrastructure Minister Antonio Di Pietro.
They will put pressure on
politicians to produce a new electoral law which reinforces a two-party system
and reduces the power of smaller parties.
The present system was
brought in under former centre-right Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi to favour broad coalitions rather than
strong single parties. The change left Prime Minister Romano Prodi with a tiny majority after his slim election win last
year.
Prodi had to resign briefly in February
after far-left parties in his coalition deserted him in a vote on foreign
policy. He said then it was a priority to change the voting system, but no progress has been made.
The main effect of the
referendum would be to hand a bundle of extra parliamentary seats in the lower
house to the most successful party in an election. Under existing law, those
seats are shared out between all the parties in the winning coalition.
Prodi also hopes to consolidate a more
stable system by creating a single main centre-left party by merging the two
existing big players into the Democratic Party. The party is expected to be
created this year.
This might force the centre
right to do the same, sweeping away the unstable multi-party system.
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