Italian referendum on citizenship invalid after low turnout

The Italian referendum regarding the alleviation of citizenship rules and the strengthening of workers’ rights has been declared invalid.

About 30% of the voters participated – quite a 50% threshold needed to make the votes – in the poll, which started on Sunday and lasted until 3:00 pm (14:00 BST) on Monday.

Voting includes five questions covering various problems, including a proposal to reduce time reduction that one must live in Italy before he can apply for citizenship of 10 to five years.

The referendum was initiated by citizens’ initiative and supported by civil society and trade unions, all of which are campaigning for the vote.

For them, the result – which saw the levels of turnout up to 22% in regions such as Sicily and Calabria – will come as a blow.

Reaching the threshold of 50% would always be a struggle – not least, because the Italian government, led by the firm right -wing Prime Minister George Meloni, largely ignores the referendum or actively discourage people to vote.

“Whether they are just over 30% or just under 30%, this is a low figure, below the expectations and goals set by promoters,” Lorenzo Pregiansko, founder of the YouTrend Political Election Company, to Italy SkyTG24.

Last week, Meloni announced that he would boycott the vote by declaring the existing Citizenship Act in Italy as “excellent” and “very open”. She visited an electoral section in Rome on Sunday, but did not vote.

But activists say a 10-year-old citizenship waiting is too long and that a reduction in the requirement of up to five years will bring Italy to many of its European neighbors.

Shortly after the polls closed, the Meloni brothers party from Italy (FDI) published an image of opposition leaders on Instagram with the inscription: “You lost!”

“The only real goal of this referendum was to overthrow the Meloni government. In the end, although the Italians downloaded you,” the publication said.

Pina Picierno of the opposition Democratic Party (PD) said the referendum was “deep, serious and avoiding defeat” and called the failure to reach up to 50% threshold “a huge gift for Georgia Meloni and the right”.

It takes half a million signatures to call a referendum in Italy. However, there is now calls for this threshold to be increased in order to reduce the number of votes set before the public.

“We spent a lot of money sending … millions of ballots abroad to vote Italian (expatrios) and they are wasted,” said Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on Monday.

Only about half of the 78 referendums conducted in Italy from World War II attracted enough votes to connect them.

The first, held on June 2, 1946, saw 89% of the Italians go to the ballot boxes and just over half of the vote to replace the monarchy with the Republic.

In the late years, abortion and divorce referendums were also successfully held.

The last referendum on achieving the necessary threshold was the vote in 2011 against law privatizing water services.