The first round of voting in the Italian presidential election on Monday January 24 yielded no results. The majority of the electors having cast a blank ballot in the ballot box, a second round of voting is therefore taking place on Tuesday January 25 to find a successor to Sergio Mattarella, whose mandate ends on February 3.
With our correspondent in Rome, Anne Treca
The parties are still not in agreement on a sufficiently unifying candidate to win the presidency of the republic. But Monday, which promised to be a mess, brought more order than expected.
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Admittedly, to sum up this first day of voting, the same title recurs throughout the Italian press: black smoke on Parliament. Most electors cast a blank ballot in the ballot box, as expected. Such was the instruction of the leaders of the large formations, from right to left, and it was rather well followed.
Objective: save time to continue to search together for a unifying candidate. During the day, the leaders spoke to each other and claim to have had positive contacts, including between opposing families in politics. We will not know more, everything was played behind the scenes.
At the end of this day, three possibilities seem privileged: a renewal of President Mattarella for another seven years, his replacement by a former president of the Chamber of Deputies, Pier Ferdinando Casini, or by Mario Draghi.
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The current Prime Minister has become the favorite of this election. If elected, it would be the first time in Italian history that a head of government left office to become President of the Republic.