Italians to vote on reducing citizenship wait

Securing a quorum will be hard: Pollster

- 

Italians will start voting tomorrow in a two-day referendum on whether to ease citizenship laws and reverse a decade-old liberalisation of the labour market, but the vote may fail to generate sufficient turnout to be deemed valid.

Opposition leftist and centrist parties, civil society groups and a leading trade union have latched onto the issues of labour rights and Italy's demographic woes as a way of challenging Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's right-wing coalition government. They gathered over 4.5 million signatures, according to the CGIL labour union, far more than needed to trigger the referendum, which will comprise five questions — four on the labour market and one on citizenship.

However, opinion polls suggest they will struggle to persuade the required 50% plus one of the electorate to turn out to make the outcome of the vote binding. Ms Meloni and senior government ministers have indicated they will not vote.