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| The winning coalition is automatically awarded 55 percent of the seats, according to a new electoral law. With electoral laws like this, Bush beat Gore in a landslide. |
Posted on 04/10/2006 7:02:54 PM PDT by jmc1969
Italy's parliament appeared headed Tuesday toward a split between the conservative coalition headed by Premier Silvio Berlusconi and one led by his center-left challenger - an election result that could stall the formation of a new government.
Final results in the two-day vote ending Monday showed Romano Prodi's center-left coalition winning control in the lower house of parliament, with 49.8 percent of the vote compared to 49.7 won by Berlusconi's conservatives. The winning coalition is automatically awarded 55 percent of the seats, according to a new electoral law.
The Senate and lower chamber of parliament have equal powers, and any coalition would have to control both in order to form a government. Both center-left and center-right leaders have said if neither side controls both houses, new elections should be called.
(Excerpt) Read more at phillyburbs.com ...
Recount!
unlike other European countries, Italy's senate is a co-equal branch of govt. So a split between the two chambers will spell total paralysis.
The center-right (Berlusconi) holds a one seat lead in the Senate, with six expat seats not yet accounted for.
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| The winning coalition is automatically awarded 55 percent of the seats, according to a new electoral law. With electoral laws like this, Bush beat Gore in a landslide. |
Actually, under Italian rules it would be Gore beating Bush, because the popular vote would be the only thing that mattered. And, to be more exact, it would've been Gore with Nader and the Greens as his junior coalition partner.
my father-in-law, an Italian LEGAL immigrant who became an American citizen 30 years ago and is as conservative as they come, told me for weeks Bersculoni would not win...
The incumbent govt. imposed those rules. Without them, the new govt would probably collapse within 8 months.
we'd be kneeling t'ward mecca by now
That was with 82% of the vote. With nearly all the votes counted (expect the foreign votes) it's 151 for Berlusconi and 149 for Prodi (according to the Financial Times). That's two seats, but everywhere else I've looked it says one seat (but no one else gives the numbers).
Just like Gore's attempt, they'll scrape up just enough dead people votes to put him over the top.
Cool, thanks! That looks more like it. I was wondering why the FT figures didn't add up to 309 (I looked up that the Italian Senate has 315 seats). I just figured they must have some inscrutable European vote mechanism, or whatever, like many of the nations over there.
I am not sure how anyone could project the overseas vote. One election district is north america and central america. Another is south america. The number of actual voters is well, small. LOL.
Do you have any idea when those 6 seats will be counted?
How is THAT for a prompt response? :)
Great! BTW, I think it's very remarkable how close the latest elections have been in both Italy and Germany. They are definitely torn over there. I wouldn't be surprised if the next French elections are similarly razor-close.
A 30,000 vote margin out of 35 million cast or more, is amazing.
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