Matteo Renzi calls his resignation a “celebration of democracy”

05.12.2016
Italy

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has resigned over the defeat of the constitutional reform he proposed in yesterday’s referendum.

The reform

The proposed amendments would seriously weaken the role of the parliament in favor of the government and, therefore, the prime minister. In fact, the government proposed to abolish the upper house of parliament, making it an advisory body, and reduce the number of senators to 100 instead of the existing number of 315.

Matteo Renzi himself claimed that these proposed changes would bring the country towards a system of "direct democracy".

The referendum

Its opponents, on the other hand, criticized the reform for excessively strengthening the role of government. In addition, many Italians voted “no” not necessarily over the proposed changes, but against the government of Renzi in general. The defeat of these reforms means the end of the current Renzi government.

That is why the turnout in the referendum was unprecedentedly high, thus allowing the prime minister to call it a "celebration of democracy". However, the number of votes for the amendments was approximately equal to the number of Renzi’s supporters - 40%.

Results

The prime minister is expected to officially announce his resignation this afternoon. After this step, President Sergio Mattarella, who was elected with the help of Renzi, has to either form a technical government, which could be led by the current prime minister among others, or hold early elections. At the same time, the opposition has repeatedly proclaimed its non-acceptance of a technical government.

If elections are held, they would be a good chance for the Eurosceptics which could in turn lead to the exit of the country from the euro zone and, consequently, provoke the EU’s collapse.

Surprise?

Moreover, as in many other cases, Katehon, based on its own data, predicted such results, while the vast majority of analysts were inclined to believe that Italy's citizens would vote for Renzi’s initiative out of fear of political chaos that may occur after his resignation.

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