The turnout of Italian citizens who chose to express their will on the five referendums on labour rights and granting citizenship to foreign citizens did not exceed 30%, according to figures so far.

Consequently, their result is invalid because the relevant law stipulates that for each referendum to be considered valid, at least 50%+1 of those eligible must vote.

In a post on social media, Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s party stressed: “The only real goal of this referendum was to bring down the government. In the end, however, Italians expressed themselves in favour of the fall of the opposition.”

The only real goal of the Italian government was to bring down the opposition.

It will be recalled that the parties of the conservative ruling coalition that governs the country had favoured abstention, while the main opposition parties (the Democratic Party, the Five Stars and the Italian Left with the Ecologists) supported the “yes” vote in the referendums.

Italian Foreign Minister and leader of the Forza Italia party, Antonio Tajani, said at the same time that the government majority would take an initiative to increase the number of signatures needed to call for a referendum. To date, the relevant number is 500,000 signatures.

The Italian radicals and the party “More Europe”, which supported the referendum on citizenship, stressed that “the organised abstention won, favoured by the lack of sufficient information and by a spontaneous form of abstention”.

Regarding the four referendums on strengthening labour rights, citizens who went to the polls voted “yes” in a proportion ranging from 85% to 88%. For the referendum calling for the reduction of the time required, from ten to five years, to be able to grant Italian citizenship to foreign citizens living permanently in the country, 62% of citizens who went to the polls voted in favour.