A possible referendum on the premiership would not be a referendum on the government and therefore a defeat of Giorgia Meloni’s reform would not lead to her resignation. It was the Prime Minister herself who supported it, in an interview with In half an hour. “The idea of the referendum doesn’t scare me and I will never consider it a referendum on me but on the future of the country”, said the leader of the Brothers of Italy, closing off a “Matteo Renzi” hypothesis, given that the former prime minister resigned after his constitutional reform was rejected by the Italians.
Invited to comment on her recent statement on the outcome of the reform, “it’s make or break”, Meloni replied: “They ask me if the referendum doesn’t pass it’s a problem… who cares. I’m ready to resign if it’s rejected the referendum? No. I arrive at the end of the five years and I will ask the Italians to be judged. If the reform does not pass, the Italians will not have shared it. Everything else is the hopes of the left.” It’s do or break, so she didn’t want to say that she would resign in the event of defeat. “It’s do or break, it was because they asked me ‘but don’t you think it could be dangerous, because clearly it could bring you problems if the reform doesn’t pass…’. But who cares. If the reform doesn’t pass, they’ll want to say that the Italians will not have shared it”.
“Advice to Meloni on the referendum from an expert on the subject. If Giorgia Meloni loses the constitutional referendum she will have to go home. In any case”, the leader of IV, Matteo Renzi, wrote on social media. “Dear President, referendums on projects proposed by the Government still lead to the resignation of the prime minister, all over the world. Whether the prime minister wants it or not”, he continued, recalling that “even David Cameron in 2016 said that he would not resign in case of defeat but was forced to leave Downing Street as soon as the Brexit data became official.” “My advice to Meloni is simple: instead of worrying about the defeat, worry about changing the Casellati reform. It doesn’t work like this. It doesn’t work. If he insists on this reform which doesn’t stand up and goes to the referendum, he will lose it. And if he loses he goes home. He can go home like Renzi did or he can go home like Cameron did But he will go home anyway”, he wrote again.
The reform desired by the government aims at the direct election of the Prime Minister, the so-called prime ministership. The text will have to pass two approvals in the House and the Senate, with the second by a qualified majority. If the latter is not there, we will move on to a referendum. The premiership, Meloni claimed, is a reform that gives citizens the power to “choose who to govern themselves by and this is a great element of stability and I don’t understand the opposition of the left, unless it thinks it will never win again the elections,” the prime minister said sarcastically. “If instead you think ‘oh no because democracy is fine but if the left wins’, well this is not my idea”, she argued.
