The current President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, 80, was elected this Saturday by Parliament to renew for a second seven-year term, after the parties have plunged the country into an absolute blockade for six days.
In the absence of the final count, Mattarella obtained the necessary 505 votes, an absolute majority of the 1,009 “major voters” -630 deputies, 321 senators and 58 regional delegates- who could participate, to which the Parliament burst into long applause.
Mattarella’s current mandate ends on February 3 and he had already indicated that he did not want to renew for a second seven-year period, but this Saturday he acknowledged that he will accept the parties that communicated their intention to support his re-election, in a personal visit they made to the headquarters of the Presidency of the Italian Republic before the vote. The Sicilian jurist will become the second head of state to repeat his mandate, after Giorgio Napolitano had to do so in 2013, also despite the fact that he had said that wanted to retire, although he signed his resignation in 2015.
Eight votes were necessary for the parties to put an end to the impasse and the solution has been to leave everything as it is, for Mattarella to continue as head of the Head of State and Mario Draghi in government. Draghi had shown his willingness to be the new president, but his appointment would have required appointing another head of government capable of keeping the current heterogeneous coalition together, and this has not been possible.
Mattarella, the best solution
“Italians do not deserve more days of bewilderment. I have a clear conscience, I have made numerous proposals, all high level, all rejected by the left. We defend that Mattarella continue in the Quirinal (seat of the Head of State) and Mario Draghi in the Government,” wrote the leader of the far-right League, Matteo Salvini.
“Keeping Mattarella in the Quirinal and Draghi in the Government is the best solution for Italy,” said former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
The leader of the progressive Democratic Party (PD), Enrico Letta, posted a photo on Twitter that read “Thank you, President Mattarella”, while Silvio Berlusconi, from Forza Italia, and the 5 Star Movement (M5S), Giuseppe Conte, they said that is the only one that can guarantee unity.
However, the solution did not please the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, who stressed on social networks: “I would be amazed if Mattarella accepted, after having firmly and repeatedly rejected this hypothesis.”
policy failure
Mattarella’s election has evidenced the failure of political parties to dialogue and find points of convergence.
The leader of the PD, Letta, had defended the current prime minister, Draghi, as the best option, but the League, Forza Italia and the M5S had rejected him, arguing that he should continue his work in the Executive in a relevant year, since Italy has begun the path of economic recovery after the pandemic and it must demonstrate to Brussels that it complies with the agreed reforms to receive almost 46,000 million euros in 2022, of the 191,500 million it will be able to obtain from European funds until 2026.
The right-wing coalition, formed by Forza Italia, Brothers of Italy and the League, had proposed several candidates who were rejected by the left and on Friday crashed in Parliament with the proposal of the president of the Senate, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, who pulled out even fewer votes than those who make up the conservative alliance, which unleashed a crisis among the partners to find out who had distanced himself from the agreed line.
This tripartite alliance comes out severely damaged after these days, as the leader of the Brothers of Italy has not publicly hidden her disagreements with Salvini over the election of Mattarella and Forza Italia has indicated that from now on she will act independently.
Salvini, who took the reins of the negotiation from the right, launched on Friday the idea that the Head of Government be occupied by another woman, something that has never happened in the country’s history and that Conte supported, and then One of the names that gained strength then was that of the current head of the country’s secret services, Elisabetta Belloni.
But it was called “unacceptable” by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and also this Saturday the deputy of Forza Italia, Antonio Tajani, acknowledged that his formation would prefer a political profile.