N. Peter Kramer’s Weekly Column
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has lost a referendum on a constitutional reform which had turned into a vote on her government. On social media, even before all the ballots were counted, Meloni said Italians had voted ‘with clarity’ and she would respect their decision, but she regretted a ‘lost chance to modernise’ the country. It is the first significant defeat for her and her right-wing coalition, which has overseen a rare period of political stability for Italy.
The government argued the referendum was about a new, firm separation between judges and prosecutors to inscribe into the constitution to improve judicial independence. Despite the question on the ballot paper was quite complex and many Italians struggled to understand the technical details, the turnout was almost 60%, a high figure for Italian standards. The vote morphed into a plebiscite on Meloni’s near-record three and half years in office.
Meloni always ruled out stepping down, whatever the result, unlike the social-democrat prime-minister Matteo Renzi in 2016 who called his own constitutional referendum, lost and stepped down. ‘The vote is not about me, but about justice, Meloni argued ahead of this vote. This loss has rubbed some of the shine off the coalition and Meloni herself. The strong woman of Italian politics has been left looking more vulnerable. ‘There is an alternative to this government’ ahead of next year’s general elections, the opposition Democratic Party leader Elly Schein said.
