ROME — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was accused of trying to rig the next elections in her favor, after her ruling coalition struck a late-night deal on a new electoral law.

The coalition parties say the bill, which regulates how seats are allocated after an election, would give the winner a strong working majority and avoid technocratic governments. But the law’s critics say it is designed to bolster Meloni’s government and keep the left out of power.

“Their priority, their only preoccupation is to guarantee their own positions, changing the law in an unacceptable way,” the opposition center-left Democratic Party said in a statement.

The opposition was caught off-guard when Meloni’s party, the right-wing Brothers of Italy, alongside her coalition partners the center-right Forza Italia and far-right League, negotiated a deal on the law late on Wednesday, bypassing dialogue with the opposition.

The deal comes at a turbulent time for Italy’s political landscape, where the left is attempting to build a coalition and the right is coming under pressure from a new hard-right breakaway party, Futuro Nazionale, that formed after a schism in the League.

Pollsters and analysts have speculated about possible new elections after a constitutional referendum in March, with the economy expected to take a turn for the worse in 2026 as the stimulus effect from the EU’s post-pandemic Recovery Fund fades.

Analysis by polling agency You Trend released Friday predicted that the right-wing coalition would obtain 46 per cent of the vote under the current system, which would secure it 57 per cent of seats if this new bill is passed.

Riccardo Magi of the centrist +Europa party called the bill manipulative and “incoherent” and said on Facebook that the coalition is treating the law “like a suit they want to tailor to their own measurements in order to stay in power.”

Angelo Bonelli of the Green and Left Alliance said in a statement that it was a “clear attempt to manipulate the forthcoming elections” and showed the government was afraid of losing authority if it loses the referendum next month.

The government is “ready to engage with everyone to improve the text,” Giovanni Donzelli, Brothers of Italy MP and Meloni’s representative at the negotiations, told reporters outside parliament on Thursday.

The proposed bill removes first-past-the-post seats, which currently account for a third of those available in Italy’s parliament, in favor of a fully proportional system. In the 2022 elections the right won more than 80 per cent of these seats as their coalition united behind single candidates, while the left vote was fragmented.

Crucially, a group of parties that secures over 40 percent of the vote would receive a bonus of 70 seats in the lower house and 35 seats in the Senate, thus ensuring a stable parliamentary majority.

Representatives for Forza Italia and Brothers of Italy did not respond to requests for comment. The League declined to comment.