By Angelo Amante and Giuseppe Fonte

ROME, (Reuters) – Italy’s cabinet proposed a ban on technocrat-led governments as part of a constitutional reform to directly elect the head of government, the prime minister said on Friday calling the plan “the mother of all reforms”.

Italy has had almost 70 governments since World War Two, more than twice the number in Britain and Germany.

Repeated attempts to produce a more robust system, the last in 2016, have always foundered amid myriad, competing visions and, given the steps needed, there is no guarantee it will become law this time.

La riforma costituzionale che abbiamo presentato mette fine ai governi tecnici e alla possibilità di creare maggioranze arcobaleno. Oggi diciamo basta ai giochi di palazzo, restituiamo ai cittadini il loro legittimo diritto di decidere da chi essere governati e diamo maggior… pic.twitter.com/pLcHZfA308

— Giorgia Meloni (@GiorgiaMeloni) November 3, 2023

The right-wing administration of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who took office last year, made ending the country’s chronic political instability strengthening the bond between governments and voters a key policy plank.

Under the proposal, the prime minister would be elected for a period of five years and the coalition supporting the winning candidate will be given at least 55% of seats, to make sure it has a workable majority in both houses of parliament.

If the elected premier is unable to carry on, the president can only reappoint the outgoing prime minister or pick another lawmaker who is part of the ruling majority.

Should such government fail to win a confidence vote, the head of state has to dissolve parliament and call an early election.

If approved, the plan would make it impossible for presidents to appoint outside technocrats to run governments, a power they have repeatedly used to end political stalemate.

Meloni told a news conference that the proposal would bring to an end the season of governments with no electoral backing that “implemented policies that citizens had not decided”.

“I consider this the mother of all reforms that can be done in Italy, because if we step back and look at what has happened in Italy and Europe in the last 20 years … we have had nine prime ministers with 12 different governments, in France four republic presidents, in Germany three chancellors.”

Meloni’s predecessor Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, led the last technocrat government after being called in by President Sergio Mattarella in 2021 to end a political crisis with COVID then battering Italy.

The bill will now be sent to parliament and undergo a convoluted approval process which makes it far from certain that it will be passed in its current form.

Any change to the constitution needs to secure a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament – something that is hard to envisage given the splintered nature of Italian politics. Failing that, it can be passed by a referendum.

The main opposition groups, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and the 5-Star Movement, have already spoken out against the plan. Only the small centrist Italia Viva party of former premier Matteo Renzi said it might back the government.

Meloni said she would go for a referendum if it did not get parliamentary support.