ITALY’S late dictator, Benito Mussolini, once denied it was difficult to govern the Italians, adding “It is simply pointless.” But what if it were impossible?

The question is posed by a new electoral law, approved by the Senate on October 26th after a stormy passage through parliament. About a third of the members of both houses of parliament will be elected on a first-past-the-post basis; the remainder by proportional representation. Only parties that win more than 3%, and electoral alliances that get more than 10%, of the national vote will be admitted to parliament.

The law harmonises the rules for the Senate and the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies. But it fails to resolve a problem at the heart of Italian politics since the last general election in 2013: a party with a quarter of the vote, Beppe Grillo’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), has so far refused to ally with any of the others. That means that every government since has been an awkward partnership between the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and representatives of the right. Unsurprisingly, they have found it difficult to pass the reforms, particularly economic ones, that Italy badly needs.

The system is designed to favour electoral alliances which, on the face of it, should prejudice the stand-alone M5S. Yet all the projections of its effects give the M5S enough seats to prevent either left or right from winning a majority. One simulation, for Corriere della Sera, a newspaper, gives M5S more seats under the new system than it would have won without the new law.

Ironically, since it was devised by the PD’s chief whip in the lower house, the law’s passage through parliament has reduced the chances of a left-wing government winning power after the next election, probably in March. That would require a pact between the PD and smaller groups that split off in disagreement with the high-handed ways of the PD’s leader, Matteo Renzi, and his readiness to hatch deals with some of the most controversial figures on the right.

To get the bill through the Senate at all, the government stifled debate with a barrage of confidence votes and only survived one with the help of a tiny party whose leader is appealing against convictions for aiding and abetting corruption and fraud. After the final vote, the speaker, Piero Grasso, formerly Italy’s chief anti-mafia prosecutor and one of the country’s most respected men, resigned from the PD in protest.

Corriere’s simulation indicated that, even if Mr Renzi succeeded in reuniting the left, his alliance would win only 197 of the 630 seats in the Chamber. A united right, including Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party and the more radical Northern League, would also lack a majority. But the real surprise was that even a ‘grand coalition’ of the PD and Forza Italia would be in a minority.

The president, Sergio Mattarella, might ask a respected figure, unencumbered by party allegiances, to form a government of ‘technocrats’ (Cynics note that Mr Grasso would fit the bill nicely). But on October 29th the League’s leader, Matteo Salvini, aired an altogether more controversial possibility: in the event of a hung parliament, he said, his first call would be to Mr Grillo—implying he would seek to create a populist alliance. Might the M5S drop its objections to join, or support, one? Perhaps. The lure of power is strong. Corriere’s projection found the combination that would get nearest to a parliamentary majority was a pact between the anti-immigrant League, the M5S and a small party founded by heirs of the neo-fascist movement. Happy Hallowe’en!