Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella set for second term after vote logjam
- Mattarella, 80, had ruled out remaining in office, but agreed after parties failed to find a mutually acceptable alternative candidate in a week of fraught voting in parliament
- Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who failed to find backing for his own ambitions for the job, earlier called Mattarella and also urged him to stay on, a political source said
Italy’s head of state Sergio Mattarella agreed on Saturday to serve a second term, senior politicians said, after parties failed to find a mutually acceptable alternative candidate in a week of often fraught voting in parliament.
Mattarella, 80, had ruled out remaining in office, but with the country’s political stability at risk, it was considered unlikely he would resist pressure to stay on.
Mattarella’s “willingness to serve a second term … shows his sense of responsibility and his attachment to the country and its institutions”, Regional Affairs Minister Mariastella Gelmini said in a statement.
The leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) Enrico Letta, who had championed Mattarella’s re-election, spoke to reporters to express his “enormous thanks to President Mattarella for his generous choice towards the country”.
Parliamentary chiefs went to the president’s palace in central Rome to ask him to remain in office, after lawmakers failed to elect a president on Saturday after seven rounds of voting.
There was no immediate comment from the president himself.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who failed to find backing for his own ambitions for the job, earlier called Mattarella and also urged him to stay on, a political source said.
It is the second time in succession that a president has been asked to renew his seven-year mandate.
