After seven unsuccessful ballots, political leaders have decided to ask the incumbent head of state to stay for a new term. Just like nine years ago, when Giorgio Napolitano accepted a second tour of the Quirinale due to the inaction of the Parliament. Here’s what happened
Sergio Mattarella is again President of the Republic. Like nine years ago, it is only an “encore” to save the election of the Head of State, in the face of a Parliament unable to find another shared name (THE SPECIAL OF SKY TG24 – LIVE UPDATES). Thus Mattarella becomes the second president in the history of the country to be re-elected to the Quirinale, after Giorgio Napolitano in 2013. Even then the president in office, despite having strongly reiterated his “no” to re-election, had to yield to a Parliament without majority. Today the government majority exists, but it has proved too large and fragmented to find a shared name. After seven unsuccessful ballots, the only option for the political leaders was to go up to Colle and ask Mattarella to stay. So the tenant of the Quirinale had to reverse the move, which had already been completed for days. Even nine years ago photos and videos of Napolitano’s move had ended up in the newspapers, but the president was forced to reverse. The Constitution establishes that the term of office of the head of state is seven years, but does not rule on re-election. And if Napolitano was the exception in a moment of extreme political difficulty, now he is the precedent of a situation that repeats itself (THE PHOTOSTORY OF ELECTION – ALL ELECTIONS).
The 2013 elections
Giorgio Napolitano was re-elected on April 20, 2013, in the sixth vote, with 738 preferences. He was 87 years old. The Parliament that arrived at the elections for the President of the Republic was fragmented: the center-left, with Pierluigi Bersani at the head of the Democratic Party, did not have the numbers to be able to give the cards. Nobody predicted the boom of the M5s, which brought 163 elected representatives to Parliament who did not want to come to terms with anyone. For this reason the first attempt made by Bersani was to find an agreement with Forza Italia, while the 5 Stars held their “quirinarie”: their candidate was Stefano Rodotà, left-wing jurist and former PDS parliamentary. At the first vote, Bersani and Berlusconi decided that the right man to vote was Franco Marini. On paper the votes were there: the parties that supported him had 739, 672 were enough to exceed the two-thirds threshold. But the former Abruzzo Christian Democrat stopped at 521.
The snipers against Prodi
In the second vote, to avoid foolishness, the Democratic Party chose the blank ballot. The next day, on the morning of April 19, Bersani made a U-turn and proposed to vote Romano Prodi from the fourth ballot. The professor, who was in Mali, on a mission for the United Nations, thanked. On paper there were 496 votes, eight more were needed to reach a majority. Bersani was convinced of obtaining them from some five star or follower of dissident Monti. But Prodi took only 395 votes: in 101 they “betrayed”. The center left entered chaos and Bersani announced that he would resign immediately after the election of the new head of state.
The climb to the Colle
It was at this point that the eyes turned to the Quirinale. On Saturday 20 April 2013, Bersani went up to Colle to ask the incumbent president, who had already prepared the move, to reconsider. The same request was made to Napolitano by Berlusconi, by Monti, by the Lega. Under the pressure of the political leaders, already in the afternoon Napolitano was re-elected with 738 votes. He remained in office until January 14, 2015, when he resigned due to difficulties related to too old age. In his place was elected Mattarella, who has now experienced a situation very similar to his predecessor.
Source-tg24.sky.it