Rejected — Turnout: 65.47%
About this election
Italy held a constitutional referendum on 4 December 2016, in which voters were asked to approve a package of constitutional amendments proposed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government. The reforms would have drastically reduced the powers and size of the Senate (from 315 to 100 members), ended the Senate's equal legislative standing with the Chamber of Deputies, and reshaped relations between central government and the regions. Renzi campaigned personally on the reforms and tied his political future to the outcome. Voters rejected the changes decisively — 59.11% No to 40.89% Yes, on a turnout of 65.47% — and Renzi resigned the following day.
The central goal was to end Italy's "perfect bicameralism", the unusual feature whereby both chambers hold equal, full legislative power, which critics blamed for legislative gridlock and short-lived governments. The reform would have turned the Senate into a smaller, indirectly chosen body of regional and local representatives, leaving most law-making and the power to remove governments with the Chamber of Deputies alone.
Italian constitutional referendums are held under Article 138 of the Constitution. When a constitutional amendment does not pass with a two-thirds majority in both chambers, it can be put to a referendum if requested by one-fifth of either chamber, 500,000 voters, or five regional councils. Crucially, constitutional referendums have no minimum turnout quorum — the result is valid regardless of participation, and a simple majority of valid votes decides it.
By staking his premiership on the vote, Renzi turned the referendum into a verdict on himself and his government as much as on the constitutional text. The Five Star Movement, the Lega and much of the right campaigned for No, as did a substantial faction within Renzi's own Democratic Party. The Yes camp struggled to explain a complex reform, and the contest became a lightning rod for wider discontent with the political establishment.
The scale of the No vote — almost 60% — made it one of the most striking populist-flavoured rejections in Europe in 2016, coming after the United Kingdom's Brexit referendum in June. It halted the most ambitious attempt in decades to reshape Italy's institutions and confirmed how difficult constitutional change is in a system designed to resist concentration of power.
Renzi had become prime minister in February 2014 after ousting Enrico Letta as Democratic Party leader, the third consecutive unelected premier since Silvio Berlusconi's fall in 2011. His government had also passed the Jobs Act labour reform and the "Buona Scuola" education changes. After the referendum defeat, his foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni took over as caretaker prime minister until the general election of March 2018, and "perfect bicameralism" remained in place.
Italian Ministry of the Interior (Ministero dell'Interno) — elezioni.interno.gov.it.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.