ROME -- Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, will decide Monday whether the country’s constitutional referendum will be held Nov. 27 or Dec. 4, Palazzo Chigi sources said.

 The decision is planned to be held Monday afternoon in a meeting of the Italian Council of Ministers organized last minute, with both options still very much on the cards.

 In reaction to this, 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.

 Government sources have said that Renzi has still not decided on the date; however, in the hours leading up to the decision, the Dec. 4 date is being considered the more likely one as it would give the Chamber more time to approve a first reading of the laws and more time to the YES campaign.

 nkd