The president, aged 80, had gone good and prepared to sink a peaceful retirement. But the inability of the political forces to agree on a name has forced it to resume service.
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In the early afternoon, Sunday, January 30, a removal truck stopped at the facade of a building in the Roman neighborhood of Parioli, where Sergio Mattarella was waiting for him. It is here in this central but quiet area, prized with the Roman bourgeoisie, that the Italian president had decided to taste the simple joys of a peaceful retirement after the end of his septennat – planned, in theory, on February 3rd. In recent weeks, he had gone to goodbye and prepare for his moving. Everything was in place, but the circumstances decided otherwise.
The day before, at the outbreak of a series of presidential voting during which a thousand large voters have come to seven deadlines, a group of party leaders and regional delegates mounted on the hill of the Quirinal, the headquarters of the Presidency, to ask him solemnly to remain in office a few more years, and thus to conjure the risk of a catastrophe. This one had the elegance not to be prayed and agreed to say available. Therefore, the eighth round of voting was only a formality.
General relief
A little after 20 hours, Sergio Mattella, 80, was re-elected for a second septennat with 759 votes on 984 votes cast in an atmosphere of general relief.
True to his laconic style, almost shy, the president limited himself to a speech of a minute and a half, in which he declares to accept because “the meaning of the responsibilities and the respect of the decisions of Parliament must prevail on other considerations and on personal projects “. Rarely we have seen a winner manifest also little enthusiasm.
So, Sunday afternoon, the movers have come to resume the furniture and the cartons they just installed. Shortly after, the truck was seen penetrating in the quirinal palace with a side entrance.
If this issue had become inevitable, it is because the inability of the different political forces to agree becoming more and more obvious. Friday, the process, electoral, always laborious, had started turning to the game of massacre. At the fifth ballot, the leader of the League (extreme right), Matteo Salvini, tried a passage in force, advancing the name of the second character of the state, the president of the Senate, Maria Elisabetta Casellati. Usually, an institutional figure of this profile is outstanding only with the certainty of prevailing. Here, nothing like: neither the left nor the 5 star movement (M5S, antisystem) had the slightest desire to designate it. The failure was therefore inevitable, but its magnitude (382 votes, 123 less than the required majority) demonstrated the disunion of the right as well as the absolute necessity of a truce.
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