Italy's main parties reached an agreement this Saturday (29) to re-elect the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, for another seven-year term.
The pact involves all the parties that make up the national unity government headed by Prime Minister Mario Draghi and arrives after almost a week of failed votes in Parliament to try to elect a new head of state.
“The country is safe,” said former prime minister and senator Matteo Renzi, leader of the centrist party Itália Viva (IV). “It's a great joy“, reinforced the Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, from the left-wing alliance Free and Equal (LeU).
Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, president of the conservative Forza Italia (FI) party, called Mattarella from a hospital in Milan and declared support for his re-election.
At 80 years old, the current head of state has been in office since 2015 and would end his term on February 3rd. Over the past few months, Mattarella has shown several signs that he does not want to be re-elected, but he has shown himself to be the only name capable of holding together such a heterogeneous coalition.
The right tried to elect the president of the Senate, Elisabetta Casellati, last Friday (28), but its vote (382 votes out of a total of 1.009) was lower than expected. The left and the anti-system 5 Star Movement (M5S) preferred to wait to seek a solution that encompassed the entire allied base.
There was a fear that the possible election of a candidate without a large majority would cause the rupture of the coalition that supports Draghi, which could throw Italy into a new political crisis at the beginning of its economic recovery.
“The objective was to face this complex stage by guaranteeing the stability of the Executive, and we achieved this result”, said the former prime minister and M5S leader, Giuseppe Conte.
Mattarella's re-election must be confirmed in a vote this Saturday afternoon, but, before that, the leaders of the ruling parties will go to the Quirinale Palace, headquarters of the Presidency, to inform him about the agreement.
To be re-elected, the president will need to obtain at least 505 votes in the electoral college, which is made up of 630 deputies, 321 senators and 58 regional delegates.
However, the agent has already got 387 votes in the seventh ballot, this Saturday morning, even without yet having the formal support of any party.
Unique precedent
In 75 years of the Republic in Italy, only one president was re-elected, Giorgio Napolitano, in 2013, and he would resign around 20 months later, making room for Mattarella.
The current head of state has always been against his re-election as he believes it would once and for all establish a dangerous precedent for such a long-term position.
Mattarella even rented an apartment in Roma for the post-Presidency and to ship part of his things to Palermo, his hometown.
Despite having a more institutional than political role, the president is far from being a merely ceremonial figure and has the power to influence the country's direction, appointing prime ministers, blocking appointments of ministers and even demanding the approval of laws in the nation's interest.
Mattarella himself is an example of the importance that a head of state can gain in delicate moments.
In 2018, the populist parties M5S and League They won the elections and tried to appoint an openly anti-euro professor, Paolo Savona, as Economy Minister, but the president, a supporter of European integration, refused to appoint him so as not to fuel Euroscepticism in Italy.
The president was even threatened with impeachment and accused of “high treason”, but he did not back down and managed to get M5S and Liga to nominate another minister – today both parties are in favor of his re-election.
At the beginning of 2021, after the fall of Giuseppe Conte, the president summoned the former president of the European central bank Mario Draghi to form a government and put an end to a political crisis that threatened to lead the country to early elections.
With Mattarella's support, Draghi managed to put together a coalition of national unity that goes from the left to the extreme right and was even considered to replace the current president, but saw his chances diminish due to the difficulty of finding a new prime minister to govern until the end of the legislature, in 2023.
According to behind-the-scenes information, Draghi himself would have made an appeal for Mattarella to remain at the Quirinale Palace “for the good and stability of the country”.
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