Giorgia Meloni’s ruling coalition has pledged to persevere with its flagship plans to overhaul Italy’s electoral system after a parliamentary setback provoked calls for snap elections.
In a secret ballot in the lower house on Tuesday, an amendment to a key aspect of the reforms was defeated by a single vote, with an estimated 20-25 members of the coalition breaking ranks.
The rejected measure would have given voters more power to rank their preferred candidates on electoral lists, with the exception of lead candidates, who would remain at the top of each party’s list.
With a general election due to be held next year, Meloni’s government intended the planned changes to increase its chances of winning a second term. Tuesday’s vote is the latest setback to its high-profile reform agenda, after a failed referendum on overhauling the judiciary in March.
As the opposition claimed victory in the chamber of deputies, chanting “elections” and “resign”, an angry Meloni took to Facebook. “The swamp won again,” she wrote, calling the failed amendment “a missed opportunity for the Italian people”.
She blamed the opposition for insisting on a secret ballot, while acknowledging that “several votes were also missing from the majority ranks, and that is something we need to reflect upon”.
Opposition leaders seized on the rebellion as a sign that the prime minister was not in command of her own ship.
Elly Schlein, the leader of the centre-left Democratic party (PD), said it was time for Meloni to “go home and give the country a government capable of solving Italy’s problems”.
Giuseppe Conte, a former prime minister of Italy, called for Meloni to step down and for early elections. “It is necessary to take responsibility for one’s decisions,” he said. Matteo Renzi, another former prime minister, called for Meloni to resign in April.
But Luca Ciriani, a senator and minister from Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, told the Italian news channel SkyTG24: “We don’t intend to end our experience in government and we are proud of [the] stability we’ve given the country.”
He said between 20 and 25 “sniper” lawmakers from within the rightwing coalition, which includes Forza Italia and the populist League, had voted against the amendment.
Francesco Lollobrigida, another Brothers of Italy minister and a close ally of Meloni, vowed to “hunt” down the rebels.
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Other members of the ruling bloc pledged to push ahead with the electoral reforms, which seek to introduce a fully proportional model, including the creation of bonus seats for the coalition that wins the most votes, even if it falls short of the required majority.
Enrico Costa, Forza Italia’s leader in the lower house, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera: “It is crucial to go ahead with this law that guarantees stability.”
The deputy prime minister, Forza’s Antonio Tajani, downplayed talk of a looming government collapse, describing the setback as “a blip along the way”. The president of the upper house, Brothers of Italy’s Ignazio La Russa, said the defeated measure could be revived there.
Though Brothers of Italy maintains a lead in polls of voters’ preferred parties, polls of favoured coalitions tell a different story. There, Meloni’s bloc comes second to a leftwing alliance led by the PD.
Meloni’s position could also be threatened by the emergence of a far-right rival, Roberto Vannacci, an MEP who broke away from the League to set up Futuro Nazionale. Surveys suggest general elections, which are due before October 2027, would produce no clear winner and a hung parliament.