Premier Mario Draghi on Saturday
asked President Sergio Mattarella to rethink his determination
to retire and instead stay in place as head of state as a
stalemate continued over the Italian presidential vote,
authoritative sources said.
Draghi reportedly told Mattarella and party leaders it was right
for him to remain in place "for the good and stability of the
country", the sources said.
The premier and former European Central Bank president urged
party leaders to ask Mattarella to reconsider his oft-stated
wish to retire, although Draghi also stressed that the decision
was in parliament's hands.
Earlier the majority parties said they would either desert the
seventh ballot or cast blank votes in the bid to elect
Mattarella's successor.
Mattarella's star is rising as he gains increasing votes amid
the deadlock despite having repeatedly insisted he does not want
to stay on.
Rightwing League party leader and former deputy premier and
anti-migrant interior minister Matteo Salvini said "we don't
think it is serious to continue with Nos and cross-vetoes and
(we should) ask the president to reconsider (his retirement from
public life)".
""Draghi should stay on as premier and Mattarella should stay at
the Quirinale (presidential palace".
Centre-left Democratic Party (PD) leader and former premier
Enrico Letta also threw the PD's weight behind Mattarella's
re-election, albeit perhaps for a shorter term than the
statutory seven years, by saying "we should heed the wisdom of
the chambers" referring to the high vote for the outgoing
president in the sixth ballot, 366 out of a required majority of
505.
Mattarella's precedessor Giorgio Napolitano is the only Italian
president to have been re-elected, albeit reluctantly, serving
another two years before standing down.
One of Salvini's two partners, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia
(FI) party, says it is backing former House Speaker Pier
Ferdinando Casini in a break with its rightwing allies.
But Casini also said "parliament must ask Mattarella to stay in
place".
The other rightwing party leader, opposition Brothers of Italy
(FdI) chief Giorgia Meloni, said she could not believe that
Salvini was calling for Mattarella to stay on.
Letta, the PD leader, said a roster of names had been discussed
with formerly populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Conte and
Salvini including bookies' favourite Draghi, Mattarella, Justice
Minister Marta Cartabia, former justice minister Paola Severino,
Belloni, Constitutional Court chief and former premier Giuliano
Amato and Casini.
Neither the centre-left or the centre-right bloc has enough
votes on its own to carry the election.
The centre right abstained in the sixth ballot while the centre
left cast blank ballots.
There are another two rounds of voting on both Saturday and
Sunday, with no end currently in sight. In the past it has taken
as many as 23 rounds to elect a new president.
On Friday 75-yar-old Senate Speaker Elisabetta Casellati failed
in her bid to become Italy's first female president.
A member of ex-premier Berlusconi's FI party, a devout
anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage Catholic, she had been
criticised for allegedly over-using a State jet and for a past
Berlusconi majority vote approving a motion that a 17-year-old
Moroccan runaway dancer the three-time ex-premier and media
mogul paid for sex with was in fact the niece of late Egyptian
strongman Hosni Mubarak.
The centre right said she was a bipartisan institutional figure
of unimpeachable standing.
The seventh ballot of the 1,009 grand electors - lawmakers from
both houses of parliament and regional representatives - started
at 09:30 and the count was expected to produce another
inconclusive result.
There will be an eighth ballot Saturday evening, and two more on
Sunday.
A simple majority is needed to elect a successor to Mattarella,
so the magic number is 505.
In the fifth ballot Casellati got 382 votes while 406 grand
electors abstained.
Mattarella, who is coming to the end of his seven-year term and
has said he does not want to be re-elected, got 46 votes, down
from 166 in Thursday's fourth ballot, in the fifth ballot but
that number surged to 366 in FRiday night's sixth ballot.
The centre right's decision to vote for Casellati caused tension
within the broad coalition supporting Draghi's government.
Draghi remains the bookies' favourite to get the top
institutional post in the eurozone's third-largest economy and
his chances are reportedly rising as the stalemate continues but
many MPs fear the election of the euro's saviour as ECB chief
will lead to them losing their seats in a snap election a year
before the natural end of the parliamentary term.
Many MPs and the domestic and international business community
are also worried that his departure may jeopardise key reforms
to the justice and tax systems and public administration needed
to secure almost 200 billion euros in EU post-COVID recovery
funds, helping turn Italy into a more modern, efficient and
greener economy.
The president is a largely ceremonial figure representing
national unity and upholding the Constitution as a sort of moral
compass for the nation, but can wield power in government crises
by naming premiers and may also ask parliament to reconsider
legislation.
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