There is no doubt, to talk about electoral reform these days sounds démodé . Or maybe it's just fatigue. After two referendum elections (plus one failed) and two reforms in less than twenty years, we are left with the worst of both systems and a Parliament fell into contempt. Everyone agrees, the parliamentarians are too many, to be paid less. The only reform on which everyone agrees is to reduce the numbers. Well. But to do that? Few remember what good and what is the Parliament. Call Richard Lenzi to discuss reforms true, what people want, I would answer talking about electoral reform. In my opinion this is the most urgently needed reform of all, to secure democracy. The low esteem in which Parliament has fallen to the project is functional populist Berlusconi.
The current electoral law, immortalized by the artist himself as a solemn "bullshit", was made to please the party leaders, all - without taking any account of the will of the voters.
I participated in an election, the first, held in 2006, with the same rules, and I decided that would be the last. It is a system designed to deceive the party leaders and Capetti bloodless that having the power to appoint the members of Parliament, still count for something in the country. The disaster was announced and even palpable, since the formation of lists. At the time of voting for the change of electoral system had dropped a cloak of complicity transverse, despite the shock in Europe. Changing the rules of the game a few weeks before the vote, as the former Berlusconi government was doing, was an operation worthy of a Caucasian republic. But Berlusconi and his allies were sure to lose with the majority system then in force, and changed without circled around too. I never capacitive ease with which they succeeded. The "porch" Calderoli passed the House in three days.
The old electoral system, the much-deprecated 'mattarellum', was the result of a referendum battle made in the name of renewal. That promise, however, was not honored. Even with the majority parties continued to carve up the nominations. Indeed, with the excuse of the coalition, jumped the mechanisms now residual of democratic participation in the selection of candidates within parties. The primaries were never seriously contemplated, as well voters resigned. And someone, I add, if they took advantage. Despite its shortcomings, the electoral law had the merit of forcing parties to choose candidates with sufficient thickness to support a head to head battle in the area. Voters, in turn, knew who had elected to account and to whom.
During the last Prodi government, there was a brief discussion on electoral reform rudimentary, with little result. All parties, without exception, proved unable to contemplate a different horizon than the right, a small gain. Nobody, not even the small parties of the left Rainbow, had the courage to face the next election, even European ones, with candidates chosen by a method of transparency and participation. A field of rubble, no doubt about it. Difficult in this context, to know where to start.
In the absence of other suggestions from the words of Casini, the only leader, as I understand it, to talk about electoral reform at this time. What Casini calls (I did it again during his recent appearance at Che tempo che fa ) is the German electoral system. We know why he does: he wants a system to facilitate its strategic plan, establishment of a center block, led by his party, which is indispensable to any coalition government. Neither more nor less than good old politics of the two furnaces dear to the centrists of the First Republic. At the point where we're at, with the legitimization of racism in the government and the State and its institutions to private interests bent of the President of the Council, a smooth return to corruption of the First Republic could also indicate a comforting prospect. But let's not impressed. I suggest you take Casini word. Go, therefore, for the German electoral system. Provided, however, to take it as such, as it is implemented in Germany.
The only adjustment I would propose to the electoral system in that country is a small change to avoid an unexpected event that is accepted by them: the number of MPs may change from time to time, depending on the result of the vote. A possibility ruled out by the Italian Constitution, which fixed by law the number of members of both chambers.
the remainder of the German electoral system should be just fine. The German Constitution, like ours, was written in the aftermath of World War II, with the same desire to restore democracy and the rule right of the best antibodies to totalitarian tendencies that had brought that country to the brink of Nazism, as well as our Constitution was designed in response to the disaster mirror of fascism. Unlike the Italian, however, the German Constitution is the fundamental law of a federal state, with institutions and balances designed to ensure the independence, without risking the drive. Even so, faced with the disruptive forces at work in Italy, I look forward to the German model.
Just as the Italian law, the German electoral system was not constitutionalized, the applicable law may, therefore, be changed by ordinary law. The fact that no one dreamed of doing for more than fifty years demonstrates the continuing validity. The law was written in 1956, at the dawn of the new Bundeswehr , in one of those rare moments in the history of states where legislators are not encumbered by the weight of the interest of part: no one had yet clear which system would have helped at the expense of others. The result is a system that balances beautifully, in my view, the democratic principle of representation with the need for governance. It is a system of proportional representation, with two important corrective: a clause of five per cent barrier, mitigated, in turn, the possibility of voting for candidates in single-member constituency, an option that can lead to the election of MPs whose parties have not reached the quorum national level. It was thanks to this system, for example, that the strongest candidates of the Green dragged his party in the Bundestag, before reaching the threshold of 5%. The possibility of voting in single-member constituency the candidate has the undoubted advantage of allowing a more direct relationship between elector and elected.
But the law in force in Germany would another innovation to our democracy asphyxiated sacrosanct: to reach the electoral reimbursements in that country, candidates for the election must be chosen through a public process and participated.
Enough, I think, to give a reason Casini. Ben is, therefore, the German electoral system. A system that no party, no matter how small, should fear, if you have the courage of their ideas. But to maintain its validity can not be adopted in part or whole, including primary, or nothing.
TANA DE ZULUETA
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