(ANSA) - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday threw his weight behind a plan to reform the country's electoral system less than eight months before the nation goes to the polls.
The four parties in Berlusconi's ruling centre-right alliance on Tuesday agreed on a proposal to use an entirely proportional system to allocate seats in parliament, overturning the current hybrid approach.
Speaking in New York, where he was to attend the United Nations General Assembly, Berlusconi admitted he had still to see the details of the proposed system.
"But if there's a system which everyone is happy with, then we must push ahead," the premier said, rejecting the objection of the centre-left opposition that voting rules should not be changed just before an election.
"This is the right time to do it," he added.
New elections must be held in Italy by next spring. The most recent opinion polls put the centre-left alliance led by Romano Prodi ahead of the governing centre right. The centre left said on Wednesday it was ready to block all parliamentary activity in order to stop the new system being approved. Such an important reform required the consensus of the opposition as well as the majority, it said.
"In the history of nations there are times when democracy is at stake. For Italy and parliament this is one of those moments," Prodi said.
Several analysts in newspapers said that the system proposed by the centre right could give it an advantage in the next elections because it penalises small parties. The new system would contain a clause requiring parties to obtain at least 4% of the national vote in order to gain representation. Votes that went to parties under that threshold would be subtracted from the coalition's total.
There are five parties in the centre-left alliance which are unlikely to make the 4% threshold and so their contribution to the opposition's overall tally would be lost, possibly handing victory to Berlusconi.
A top member of Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, Isabella Bertolini, defended the bid to change the electoral system with a bill deposited in parliament on Tuesday. "Prodi should calm down and his coalition should stop telling lies. By making the electoral system more proportional, the governing coalition only wants to assure Italy of a more stable system and greater governability."
Italy's current electoral system allocates 25% of parliamentary seats by proportional representation and the rest with a first-past-the-post system based on constituencies. There is no cut-off point for representation in the two houses.
