Italy's center-left opposition parties yesterday unanimously agreed to boycott parliament indefinitely in protest at plans by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition to change the country's electoral rules just months before a general election is due.
The unprecedented move means parliament may be unable to approve the swift passage of a number of crucial bills, including the next year's budget.
Romano Prodi's Unione coalition agreed in a meeting to stop parliamentary proceeding ad libitum (at one's pleasure) after the ruling House of Freedoms coalition announced plans to adopt proportional representation (PR) as Italy's electoral system.
Italy's current system, introduced in 1993, is a mix of PR and first-past-the-post.
Berlusconi is thought to have agreed to the move to appease the Union of Christian Democrats (UDC), a small and moderate party that has repeatedly threatened to pull out of his coalition. The UDC sees PR as a means of gaining more influence on the political scene.
Experts are nearly unanimous in pointing out that PR would almost certainly favor Berlusconi's coalition in next spring's election.
Analysts point to the results of the 2001 vote, in which his House of Freedoms coalition gained 45.4 percent with the first-past-the-post system but 49.5 percent where PR is used.
They also note that PR tends to limit the damage of the losing coalition, which according to current opinion polls will be the one headed by Berlusconi.
Commentators say the prime minister is wrong to seek to change the rules of the game just months before the elections are due.
In an editorial on Italy's leading daily, Corriere della Sera, Pierluigi Battista compared Berlusconi to a player who decides to give himself an unfair advantage while the game is almost over.
Ezio Mauro of the left-of-center La Republica described the reform as the desperate act of a man who knows he is about to lose.
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