Italian PM Matteo Renzi hails introduction of new Italicum system designed to end decades of coalition chaos and deliver stable majorities

The new law means that the largest party to secure 40% or more of the vote will automatically be assigned enough MPs to have a parliamentary majority

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (Getty Images)

For decades it was the byword for unstable government, the result of a system of proportional representation that made political horsetrading and back-room dealing just as important as the electioneering that preceded them.

Now Italy is on course to put a succession of weak coalition governments behind it after MPs voted for a new “Italicum” system designed to deliver stable majorities.

The Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, hailed the proposals as a way to end the endless “chatting” and prevent the kind of crises that have followed Italy’s two most recent elections. Their inconclusive results meant the country’s head of state – an elected president – had to choose new prime ministers on both occasions, one of them being Mr Renzi.

The new law means that the largest party to secure 40 per cent or more of the vote at a general election will automatically be assigned enough MPs to have a parliamentary majority. If no party wins 40 per cent, a second round of voting will be held between the two largest parties, with the winner guaranteed 54 per cent of seats.

With the support of the minority centre-right partner in his coalition government, Mr Renzi managed to push the Bill through its decisive parliamentary hearing despite many left-leaning members of his own centre-left Democratic Party voting against it.

Mr Renzi said: “The law is important because it enables you to know who wins the elections and who has the responsibility to govern and do things, and not just keep chatting.”

Roberto D’Alimonte, the Luiss University political scientist who helped Mr Renzi devise the Italicum system, said that “once up and running, the mechanism could radically change Italian politics”.

The Italian press was quick to note that this first step in taking Italy towards a UK-style, two-party system comes on the eve of a British general election that seems about to deliver a potentially unstable, Italian-style multi-party coalition.

Many of Mr Renzi’s critics say the Italicum will give too much power to the executive. “This law threatens to place an excessive concentration of powers in the prime minister’s hands,” said Bologna University academic Gianfranco Pasquino, writing in Il Sole 24 Ore.

The vote took place after a walk-out by protesting MPs from anti-establishment parties including Beppe Grillo’s Five-Star Movement, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the Left Ecology Freedom party, the anti-immigrant Northern League and the far-right Brothers of Italy.

The new Bill will come into force next year after the Senate’s law-making power has been reduced.