Sat, July 28, 2012
ROME, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Italy's center-right People of Freedom Party (PdL) will present its project for a new electoral law on Tuesday, party secretary Angelino Alfano said on Saturday.
The PdL, one of the main political forces supporting Prime Minister Mario Monti's emergency government of technocrats, "will try everything possible to avoid a struggle in parliament on the new law," Alfano said in an interview with Adnkronos news agency.
"We will try to find an agreement to prevent a head-on collision in parliament," Alfano was quoted as saying.
The secretary called himself "optimistic" about his party's proposal that will be especially based on two points. First, he said, it would attribute a majority prize to the most voted party, which then would be able to build its coalition in parliament.
The other important question, he added, would be the choice of MPs. "Our model will be based on preferences, with a very high percentage of at least two thirds. We hope the Democratic Party (PD) will be not totally hostile to this choice," he said.
On Thursday, Monti called on the political forces supporting his government to urgently agree on a new electoral law to reassure financial markets of the stability of the Mediterranean country after political elections that are scheduled for next spring.
Everybody in the Italian political landscape from left to right agreed it was necessary to change the current law, adopted in 2005, which forces voters to choose a single list of candidates and does not allow them to choose their own representatives directly.
However, until now no agreements have been reached, and Italy has continued to face mounting pressure with yields on its benchmark 10-year debt over 6 percent.
The country's increasingly bad performance on international markets, Alfano stressed, was not a fault of former premier and founder of PdL Silvio Berlusconi as believed, and now "this has been amply demonstrated."
"We continue to believe that Berlusconi deserves an apology because he was accused. Now those allegations have been denied but none of our competitors has acknowledged this fact," Alfano said.
Then he called himself confident that Berlusconi "will accept our insistence, and offer himself again as a candidate for prime minister again," regardless of the type of electoral law.
He also reassured the PdL support to Monti's government adding his party have never set limits to the duration of the current emergency cabinet.
"We enforce our arguments in parliament, but do not want to topple the government,"which has taken into account the PdL suggestions various times, Alfano said.
