He stacks up. The President of the Italian Republic had indicated that he did not want it, but since the beginning of the week, Parliament having been unable to agree on a name, the electors ended up asking Sergio Mattarella to serve a second term.
An eighth and last round of voting therefore took place, this Saturday, January 29 in the Italian Parliament, and this time white smoke: Sergio Mattarella, 80, is re-elected president.
He won the absolute majority of 505 votes out of 1,009 senators, deputies and regional officials. The counting of the ballots continued in the hemicycle of the Chamber of Deputies in Rome on Saturday evening.
The end of an electric week in Rome, confides our correspondent in Rome, Anne Treca. In this very special election, where there is no candidate, but where one is chosen by the electors, the outgoing has revealed himself as the only personality able to gather votes in almost all political families. .
The former Governor of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, was the favorite last week, but he did not convince the big voters. However, his position as Prime Minister is confirmed. One would be tempted to say “saved”, so difficult was this election, with a real risk of total political crisis hovering over the capital.
Because this is the condition that President Mattarella set in the afternoon to play extra time which he did not want: the parties of the government majority undertake to continue to work together. With the Mattarella-Draghi tandem, Italian elected officials therefore voted for the choice of continuity.
►Read again: No white smoke in Italy, the vote for the presidency continues