Italy’s parties on Saturday voted overwhelmingly for outgoing President Sergio Mattarella to remain for another term, averting the political chaos that a failure to elect his successor could have sparked in the eurozone’s third-largest economy.
Electing the 80-year-old ended weeks of hand-wringing over whether prized Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi should be elevated, with many fearing such a move would have left the government rudderless at a highly sensitive time.
Mattarella needed at least 505 votes from an electoral college of 1,009 lawmakers and regional representatives. He won 759, earning another stint as president in spite of himself.
Photo: Bloomberg
The former constitutional court judge had repeatedly ruled out serving a second term, but gave in after Italy’s bickering political parties failed to find another viable candidate.
“I had other plans, but if it’s necessary, I’m available,” Mattarella said before the vote, according to party parliamentary representatives.
He was expected to be sworn in on Wednesday or Thursday. Although many expect him to leave before the end of his new seven-year term, he is likely to stay at least past elections scheduled for next year.
Italy’s presidency is largely ceremonial, but the head of state wields serious power during political crises, from dissolving parliament to picking new prime ministers and denying mandates to fragile coalitions.
Draghi said the result, after eight rounds of voting over six days, was “wonderful news for Italians.”
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter his congratulations to “dear Sergio,” while German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier hailed a “role model” who “understands the importance of Europe.”
Pope Francis hailed Mattarella’s “generous” agreement to stay on during a period of uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit Italy hard.
Draghi, a former European Central Bank chief brought in to lead a national unity government almost a year ago, had been touted for months as the most eligible head of state.
Many feared his departure as prime minister would destabilize debt-laden Italy as it recovers from a lockdown-induced recession.
Italy is banking on almost 200 billion euros (US$222.9 billion) in EU funds to cement the trend.
However, the money from Brussels is dependent on a tight timetable of reforms.
International investors have been watching the election closely, amid fears Draghi’s exit could undermine the whole program.
Guido Cozzi, professor of macroeconomics at the University of St Gallen, said that an extension of Mattarella’s mandate was “ideal for the financial markets.”
Draghi has also managed to keep to a minimum squabbling between Italy’s parties, almost all of which share power in his national unity government.
The Repubblica daily said that with the campaign for next year’s election already under way, the year ahead “risks being a replay of the shambles we’ve seen over the past few days.”
It now falls to Mattarella to keep the peace: “a task more difficult than we can imagine,” it said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion