The Necessary Majority

Benito Mussolini projected two measures designed to give the Fascisti a majority in the Italian Parliament.

Proportional representation was introduced by Nitti four years ago. Under that system a political party is entitled to as great a percentage of seats in the Chamber of Deputies as its numbers bear to the electorate; a party that gets 40% of the votes gets 40% of the seats, etc.. Italy has many political parties and under this system the Catholic Party held the balance of power while the Fascisti and Nationalists combined only held 50 seats out of 430.

So Mussolini has decided that proportional representation is a good thing, but only for the minority. He has proposed that Italy be considered as a single district. The party getting the largest vote gets two-thirds of the seats, the other third to be divided proportionally among the other parties. Under this scheme, the Fascisti Party might have only one-third of the votes, but get two-thirds of the seats.

Don Sturzo, leader of the Partito Populare (Catholic Party), which is the chief beneficiary under Nitti's proportional representation, is violently opposed to the proposed electoral law; of three former Premiers-- Giolitti, Salandra and Orlando, only Orlando favors it; the Government press is perfunctory and the Ministry divided. It is not likely that the proposal will pass without modification.