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July 31, 2020

Green light from the Council of Ministers to the decree on the adjustment of the electoral system in the Puglia Region to double gender preference. The government intervened with a decree to introduce double preference, after the Apulian regional council did not legislate for the loss of the legal number.

The prefect of Bari appointed commissioner
The government has appointed an extraordinary commissioner with the function of providing "strictly consequent obligations" for the implementation of the decree. The prefect of Bari, Antonia Bellomo, has been identified as the commissioner.

Yesterday Conte's warning: "Act or intervene"
Yesterday, Prime Minister Conte had invited the Puglia Council to intervene. "We cannot accept - it was the aut aut of the premier - that the Puglia Region does not transpose the fundamental principle of equality between men and women for access to elective offices. The State cannot go back on the point". Conte, taking "note of the willingness of some regional groups to urgently approve the rule", waited "for the process to be completed in the next few hours", but the "government", he warned, is ready "to exercise the substitute powers".

It is a race against time to adapt Puglia's electoral system to national legislation, without incurring appeals that could cancel the outcome of the elections. The draft of the measure prepared by the government has already received the positive opinion of the Attorney.

The document approved by the CDM obliges Puglia to already foresee for the September Regions the double gender preference and the inadmissibility of the electoral lists that do not respect the 60/40 gender proportion. To "get around" the obstacle represented by possible appeals, the Executive has appointed, again through a decree, a commissioner who will then replace the regional council.

In Puglia there has been pressure from both sides on the president of the regional council, Mario Loizzo, to convene a new assembly by August 5 to approve the rule on gender equality. The Swabian asked yesterday, again, the entire center-right deployment, but also "pieces" of the center-left coalition. "It must be the regional council to modify the electoral law of Puglia to introduce gender preference", had warned Raffaele Fitto, candidate president of the center-right to the Puglia region, together with Lega, FI, FdI, Udc and Nuovo Psi. The opposition leaders had urged "the Prime Minister, Mario Loizzo, to immediately convene the meeting: the whole center-right - they highlighted - is ready to vote on the proposal of the Emilian Council, as it was approved by the Commission". The same request to convene a new meeting of the Council had come from the "Senso Unico" civic which supports the outgoing governor Michele Emiliano.

And today the request for a reconvocation of the Council had come from the President of Italy in the Municipality of the Puglia Region, Paolo Pellegrino, announcing "readiness for total adaptation to the national reference law".