Italian opposition step up fight against Renzi's electoral reform

By Roberto Landucci ROME (Reuters) - Resistance to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's proposed reform of Italy's electoral law hardened on Tuesday when opposition parties walked out of a parliamentary committee intended to discuss the changes. But Renzi, who says the reform is necessary to give Italy more stable and efficient government, vowed not to back down. The plan is contested by parts of his own Democratic Party (PD) as well as by opposition parties on both the left and right. The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia, the anti-immigrant Northern League and the leftist SEL party abandoned the lower house constitutional affairs committee after Renzi replaced 10 PD rebels on the committee with party loyalists. The opposition protest may have no practical consequences for Renzi's hopes of approving the reform in parliament by the end of May, but it underlines a worsening political climate and growing resistance to his political agenda. "The Democratic Party evidently wants to eliminate any debate and so we'll leave them all the responsibility of approving (the reform) in the Committee on their own," said Forza Italia's lower house leader Renato Brunetta. Renzi, 40, a former mayor of Florence, replaced the PD rebels because he feared they would join the opposition in presenting amendments to his reform bill. He responded firmly to Tuesday's walkout. "To stop now would mean leaving the entire political class in a swamp," he posted on his Facebook page. "After years of stagnation Italy is on the move again; we are ready to listen to everyone but we won't be stopped by anyone." The reform would be unlikely to pass if the PD dissidents were to oppose it in the final vote in the lower house, expected next month. However, such a rebellion would probably spark the fall of the government and most analysts consider this unlikely. Renzi has been pushing to amend voting rules to ensure a clear winner in elections since he took over the PD leadership in 2013, following a deadlocked election which forced the rival centre-left and centre-right blocs into an unwieldy coalition. The proposed electoral law, dubbed the "Italicum", would introduce a two-round voting system and theoretically avoid the sort of deadlock seen after the 2013 election. Opponents are unhappy about provisions that would let party bosses handpick candidates, saying this will concentrate too much power with the leadership. (Writing by Gavin Jones; Editing by Gareth Jones)