by Eric J. Lyman
ROME, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The path to next year's elections in Italy has recently become clearer after the country's two largest parties determined their candidates. But experts here say it's still not the time to speculate on the election as a major uncertainty, a new electoral law, is yet to be finalized.
A week ago, the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement picked political newcomer Luigi Di Maio to be its standard bearer in the upcoming vote. Therefore, the two largest parties in Italy have both decided on their candidates as the Democratic Party picked Matteo Renzi, former prime minister, in April.
The two parties each enjoys the support of a little more than a quarter of the electorate, according to recent opinion polls.
And the two, also according to the polls, are each at least 10 percentage points ahead of other parties, including the Forza Italia party of former prime minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi and the euro-skeptic Northern League.
As the most likely rivals in the next year's showdown, Di Maio and Renzi wasted no time to attack each other.
On the day of his selection as a candidate, Di Maio went out of his way to say he was ready to do battle with the more established Renzi. For his part, Renzi struck back, barely attempting to hide his view that Di Maio is a populist.
"We have emerged from the economic crisis, but it is not enough," Renzi said, referring to signs that the Italian economy may finally be emerging from a long economic malaise. "It will not be easy to push the populists back."
"It is not a race between these two parties at this point, it is a public relations battle," Mauro Calise, an author and political scientist at Federico II University in Naples, said in an interview. "For the time being, Di Maio and Renzi have to be concerned about keeping their own parties together. They can't afford to let them erode."
Considering there are still months to go before the holding of the election scheduled in the first half of next year, and another key factor, the new electoral law, is still pending, analysts say it's hard now to predict Italy's political landscape after the election.
Italian political parties have been discussing a new electoral law for more than two years. When completed, it will include rules on how power will be divided up after the vote, including potential bonus seats in parliament for the most successful party. The goal is to make Italy's notoriously unstable political system more stable.
"Until we have a new electoral law we cannot know what to expect in the elections," Arianna Montanari, a professor of sociology of politics at Rome's La Sapienza University, told Xinhua. "In regard to the vote, we're also speculating about something that could be six months away, or longer. A lot can happen in that time frame."
The best guess is that the electoral law will be finalized late in the year or perhaps in the first few weeks of 2018.
It is unlikely that any party will win at least 50 percent of the vote, which means barring an electoral law that provides a large bonus for the top party, some coalitions will have to be formed. That could put Berlusconi's Forza Italia, the Northern League, or some of the smaller parties into influential roles.
For his part, Di Maio said the Five-Star Movement will accept support from other parties if it tries to form a government, but noted that it won't offer ministerial positions to those parties, something Montanari said is unlikely to garner much support.
Calise, meanwhile, said he worries that if the electorate remains as fragmented as it is today when it comes to vote, no big change will happen, regardless of the electoral law.
"We might see a stalemate for six or nine months after the vote with neither side able to form a majority," Calise said. "In that case, don't be surprised if a respected, non-polarizing leader like (current Prime Minister Paolo) Gentiloni stays on while everything gets sorted out."
