THE Italian government has announced that a much-anticipated referendum on constitutional reform is to be held on December 4th. The outcome will be crucial for the prime minister, Matteo Renzi (pictured), who said earlier this year he would resign if the vote went against him. That was rash. By personalising the ballot, Mr Renzi created an opportunity for voters to register a protest against his left-right coalition and, in particular, its failure to revive the economy. Quarter-on-quarter growth in the second quarter was flat. A government victory that at first seemed assured now looks much less certain. The latest poll, for Eumetra, a research institute, estimated that when undecided voters and likely abstainers were stripped out, the opponents of the reform had increased their lead to 10 percentage points. Why?

Unlike David Cameron, who called Britain’s referendum on EU membership, Mr Renzi had no option but to stage a referendum after failing in parliament to secure the necessary two-thirds endorsement for the changes he seeks. Their aim is to make Italy, which has had 63 governments in the 70 years since the birth of the Republic, a more governable country. The mayfly-like lifespans of Italian governments is not the sole reason that they find it impossible to implement their programmes. The two legislative chambers have equal powers, so bills must go between them until they are approved in identical form. The constitutional-reform bill would drastically curb the power of the Senate. Another reason it is so hard to bring about change is that central and regional governments have overlapping responsibilities. The reform would tackle that too.

Critics argue that, when taken with a new electoral law that has already been approved by parliament (but which could be reopened), the reform would give the next prime minister too much power. The head of government would have five years in office with a guaranteed parliamentary majority, free of even the threat of a rebellion in his own ranks—deputies’ prospects for re-election will depend not on their popularity with their constituents but on their standing with their party leader. It does not help that the hyper-active Mr Renzi is notorious for running government as a one-man show.

What spooks investors is not so much that Italy could lose a once-in-a-generation opportunity to sort itself out, but that Mr Renzi’s departure could pitch the country back into political disarray and spark a wider crisis in the EU economy. Italy is a weak link: it has debts of 132.7% of GDP and a banking sector weighed down by bad debts after years of sluggish growth. Moreover, Italy’s biggest opposition group and the most obvious beneficiary of a government defeat is the internet-based Five Star Movement, which was founded by a comedian, Beppe Grillo, and largely composed of political novices. Whether it could run a national economy is far from clear. Mr Renzi’s chances of victory would be enhanced by either some good economic news or the budgetary leeway to offer a few juicy titbits to voters in his government’s 2017 budget. But the economic news continues to be dismal. Despite a widely applauded reform of Italy’s employment laws, the number of indefinite contracts offered by employers was down by a third in the first seven months of 2016. As for fiscal flexibility, Italy remains bound by the euro zone’s strictures and neither the European Commission nor the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, look ready to cut Mr Renzi significant slack. That could explain why he played the brat in Bratislava at the EU’s last summit, refusing to join a concluding press conference given by Mrs Merkel and François Hollande, the French president. Appearing exasperated with the EU’s austerity policies has a double advantage: it casts the blame for Italy’s lacklustre economic performance elsewhere and lends Mr Renzi an air of fashionable euro-scepticism. Expect more posturing as the vote draws near.