ROME -- Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi decided Monday in a cabinet meeting that the country’s constitutional referendum will be held Dec. 4, Palazzo Chigi said.

 It has been decided that the vote will be held from 7am to 11pm Dec. 4, and not Nov. 27 as was the other planned option. The Italian prime minister will open the YES campaign Sept. 29 in Florence.

 The decision was made Monday afternoon in a cabinet meeting supposedly organized last minute, with both options still very much on the cards before the meeting.

  Parties of the Italian Left and the Forza Italia party are protesting that they were not consulted about the choice of the date.

 Forza Italia politician, Renato Brunetta, accused the leader of the Democratic Party of being “a shameless fraudster,” and Italian Left politician, Arturo Scotto, lamented the PM’s “very scarce institutional awareness.”

 The main proposal of Renzi’s suggested plan to be voted on in the referendum is to reform the Senate, which benefits from the same powers as the Italian Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies, the lower house. This is thought to be inefficient because it supposedly obliges bills to be bounced back and forth between the two chambers until both can agree on an identical bill.

 This would, if approved by the upcoming referendum, limit the Senate’s legislative powers. It would no longer be able to pass votes of confidence in the government and would no longer be directly elected. Instead, a reduced membership would be selected by the regions from among their councillors and local mayors. The president would also appoint five members directly.

 The Dec. 4 date is will now give the Chamber more time to approve a first reading of the laws and more time to for Renzi to concentrate on the YES campaign.

 nkd