Women in municipal councils in Sicilian municipalities, delicate agreement for doubling

Last Updated: May 21, 2025

Donne in giunta nei Comuni siciliani, all'Ars fragile accordo per il raddoppio

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A fragile agreement in the ARS commission on the law that increases the mandatory presence of women in councils. According to the President of the Institutional Affairs, Ignazio Abbate, all parties would have agreed on the opportunity to raise the so-called gender representation from 20 to 40%. Thus adapting the Sicilian threshold to the national one.

Everything stems from one of the most controversial articles of the reform of local authorities under discussion at the ARS. In particular, the one that provides for bringing the obligation of women in the council to 20%. It may seem like a step forward in gender representation, but it is actually a compromise downward, as the national threshold is currently at 40%. To change the law, a transversal front of female deputies and councilors has been created, which has also led to an appeal with thousands of signatures.

And this afternoon Abbate has opened up to the women’s requests: “This morning in the Institutional Affairs commission, everyone’s willingness to adopt the national law on gender representation emerged, which provides for 40% of women in municipal councils.”

The conditional is still necessary because probably there will be a secret vote on this, as on many other rules of the reform, which could overturn the agreements made in public. Furthermore, it should be noted that a specific amendment proposing the 40% threshold instead of the 20% threshold was not voted on in the commission. There was simply a discussion in which those present expressed this intention. But nothing is written yet. In any case, in the commission, there was also an intention to align with the national law (that is, 40%) but to postpone the entry into force of this obligation to the next council term.

This hypothesis clashes with the fact that the other weighty rule, which provides for the possibility of adding an assessor to all municipal councils, would instead come into force immediately. We will see. Meanwhile, this morning, the Democratic Party, with a conference in Rome, launched an attack to demand that the threshold be raised to 40%: “The center-right in Sicily is carrying on yet another unacceptable fight over female representation in municipal councils. Because compared to national legislation, in Sicily, using the prerogative of the Statute instrumentally, which provides autonomy for the organization of local authorities, the center-right wants to reduce gender representation by 50%,” said the regional secretary of the PD and deputy to the Chamber Anthony Barbagallo.

“The PD has proposed several amendments to comply with the national quota, and I hope that no one will ask for a secret vote at the ARS but that on such an issue, a open vote will be taken- added Barbagallo -. In any case, the text will arrive in the chamber on Tuesday, and for that date, the PD Sicily has organized a great mobilization in the squares and in the parliamentary halls denouncing this serious situation. At this moment in Sicily, the situation is – he continued- even more serious for two other aspects: the lack of double gender preference for the elections of the Sicilian regional assembly for which we have already requested the ARS and the Region to be placed under commission from the last legislature. The same thing, and it is the height, will happen on December 15 for provincial elections after 10 years of commissioning: even in this case, the double regional preference for provincial and metropolitan councils is not provided. These are unacceptable violations of the rules in blatant violation of constitutional norms.”

But for Abbate, the criticisms of the PD are overtaken by the agreements reached in the commission: “I am surprised by the controversy raised by the PD at the press conference in Rome, evidently they have been misinformed”.