"All of this was put in place after World War II to centralize power in the hands of the Christian Democrats, and force non-communist parties to go into coaliti

"All of this was put in place after World War II to centralize power in the hands of the Christian Democrats, and force non-communist parties to go into coalition with them." And yet this system allowed liberal reforms, like divorce and abortion, to be carried our during a center-right party rule, and Italy to become (at the time) the 7th most advanced economy. Even the clause in the constitution that declared Chatolicism as the country's official religion was amended during CD rule. It is (was) an imperfect system and it created a lot of instability, since even a party with a low share of votes could throw down the coalition government at any moment, but at least it forced parties to go beyond ideologies and work out compromises. The lack of alternance in power also fostered corruption, which was the downfall of CD. Still, it's hard to consider what came after as a marked improvement for the country.