Analysis
Council of Ministers target June for referendums, ‘confirmation they’re afraid’
The elections decree establishes that the first round of the local elections will be held on two days, Sunday, May 25 and Monday, May 26, while the referendums will be held on the runoff dates, June 8 and 9, during the school holiday.
The draft of the elections decree, circulated before last week’s Council of Ministers started, had the referendum committees rejoicing for a few hours. In the draft text, all of the demands of CGIL and +Europa for the referendum questions on labor and citizenship for people of migrant origin seemed to have been accepted: voting allowed for out-of-towners and election day set at the same time as the first round of the local elections, to allow for the highest participation.
However, not even 10 minutes into the meeting, the Prime Minister’s office released the real version of the decree. And, as was predictable, it is clear from the text that the government's position hasn’t changed: the referendums must fail.
The elections decree establishes that the first round of the local elections will be held on two days, Sunday, May 25 and Monday, May 26, while the referendums will be held on the runoff dates, June 8 and 9, during the school holiday. Minister for European Affairs and the NRRP Tommaso Foti tried to downplay the issue: “Turnout is a function of the questions, not the day”; but for the opposition forces, this is nothing more than “confirmation that the government is afraid,” as Riccardo Magi of +Europa explained, ”because out of all the options put forward, the date chosen is the worst for turnout.”
“It is an uphill road,” he added during the flash mob with inflatable pencils organized in front of Palazzo Chigi at the end of the Council of Ministers, “but we will do everything to defend the voters’ choice.”
The draft of the bill also included a participation mechanism for out-of-towners, both students and workers (a total of around five million people), a decisive point for the referendum committees. “We have to read the provisions, but if this is the case, it would be an important step forward,” commented Magi, who also reminded Foti that referendums “have always been screwed over by the choice of summer dates after the end of the school year. That’s the history of this country, just as they have always been neutered by the lack of information as well.”
The entrenchment of the government, which has no intention of questioning what remains of the Jobs Act and which is ideologically opposed to the idea of facilitating access to citizenship rights for people with migrant backgrounds (as Forza Italia secretary Tajani found out when he tried to propose a tempered Ius Scholae), is stirring up the minority: “What the government is doing is a form of sabotage of democracy,” said Angelo Bonelli of AVS, while the PD spoke with one voice (on this issue at least), condemning the “Pontius Pilate-like decision, made with the only objective of scuttling popular participation” (PD senator Marco Meloni) and stressing the need for “a strong, popular, high-turnout response, because the five referendums can change the lives of millions of citizens” (PD deputy Arturo Scotto). According to the Communist Refoundation, we are seeing “petty cunning on the part of the usual thieves of democracy.”
Now it is a matter of working to try to achieve the quorum, starting with the appropriate information coverage. On Monday, the referendum committees met with Giampaolo Rossi, chief executive officer of RAI. The information campaign must begin in time, to make it possible for voters to communicate their intention to vote in a municipality different from that of residence no later than 35 days before the opening of the polls.
“All these things are not technicalities,” Magi pointed out. “They are the ways in which the will of the people is neutralized. And to think that this is the government that wants to elevate it in order to have the prime minister directly elected, but they’re afraid of a referendum vote.”
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/referendum-si-vota-a-giugno-il-governo-sabota-il-quorum on 2025-03-14