Italian referendum proposals to ease citizenship laws and tighten job protection rules failed on Monday due to low voter turnout, the YouTrend polling agency said, in a setback for the centre-left opposition and unions that had championed them.
Official data from about half of the polling stations showed slightly less than 30 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballots at the end of two days of voting, far short of the 50 percent plus one of the electorate needed to make the vote legally binding.
The outcome is a blow for the coalition of centre-left opposition parties, civil society groups and the CGIL trade union behind the referendum questions, and a win for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who strongly opposed them.
Meloni and her right-wing allies encouraged their supporters to boycott the vote. The prime minister visited a polling station in Rome on Sunday but did not cast a vote, a tactic she had indicated that she would adopt.
Opposition forces had hoped that latching on to the issues of labour rights and Italy's demographic woes could help them challenge Meloni, something they have struggled to do since she came to power in 2022.
"The opposition wanted to turn the referendum into a vote on the Meloni government. The response is very clear: the government emerges from this stronger and the opposition is weaker", said Giovanbattista Fazzolari, a cabinet undersecretary and a close aide to Meloni.
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