The Senate approved the constitutional reform that gives 18-year-olds the right vote to elect the Senate. The motion was carried with 178 senators voting in favour of the reform. 15 voted against and 30 abstained.
Parliament definitively approved the reform, which is to be promulgated in three months time. As less than two-thirds of Senators were present at the time the vote took place, a referendum will be required to confirm the constitutional change.
The voting and candidacy requirements for the Chamber of Deputies (Montecitorio) and the Senate (Palazzo Madama) will be equalised for the first time in Italy’s history.
Until today, voting for the Senate required a person to be at least 25 years of age. The minimum age to run as a candidate for the Senate is 40 years. The constitutional reform has already been approved by the Chamber of Deputies last summer.
This reform will begin from the next political elections and will ensure that the two chambers will have the same electoral base and therefore more likely to have the same political majorities, as explained by Senator Dario Parrini, president of the Constitutional Affairs Commission.
Almost 4 million people, aged between 18 and 24, will now be allowed to shape more fully the political future of Italy. “The paradoxical and now anachronistic existence of a branch of Parliament endowed with the same powers as the other but not elected by universal suffrage is overcome,” said Dario Parrini.
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