The parties in the centre-rightmajority led by Premier Giorgia Meloni have reached agreement on the so-called anti-reversal rule in their proposed reform of the premiership to introduce the direct election of the premier by the Italian people to reduce the possibility of a new government being formed under a different prime minister without consultation through the ballot box.
The rule, presented as a government amendment to the constitutional reform bill currently before the Senate, provides for the return to the polls in the event of no confidence in the elected prime minister.
It also stipulates that the so-called 'fallback' premier - who would only take over in exceptional circumstances such as in the event of the death, permanent impediment or forfeiture of office of the elected prime minister - would only have one shot at forming a new executive based on the existing elected majority before new elections are called.
Under the current system in Italy, parties engage in government-formation talks after a general election and then the coalition that forms a ruling majority in parliament agrees on a figure to propose to the President of the Republic to become prime minister.
That figure is not necessarily one of the politicians given by the parties as their premier candidate during the election campaign.
The centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) has slammed the proposed reform as "dangerous", saying that it "weakensparity and the prerogatives of the President of theRepublic".
PD Secretary Elly Schlein has described it as "a distortion of the Constitution and the parliamentary Republic".
"We will use every available dialectical tool in parliament to oppose a project that we consider to be dangerous," he continued.
Leading Constitutional experts Sabino Cassese and Antonio Baldassarre have called on the government to abandon its plans to introduce the direct election of the prime minister and begin a process of constitutional reform that is shared by the opposition.
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