SERGIO MATTARELLA RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT

When the threshold of the 505 votes necessary to reach the quorum is exceeded, the electoral college breathes a sigh of relief and bursts into great applause. It is January 29 and Sergio Mattarella is re-elected to the presidency of the Italian Republic. He is the point of balance of opposing strategies that seem to have left significant consequences among the parties that make up the vast majority that supports the government led by Mario Draghi. At the end of the count there were 759 votes, more than those obtained by Francesco Cossiga in 1985, by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in 1999 and by Giorgio Napolitano on his re-election in 2013. After a week of negotiations and “rejected” candidates, even excellent ones, the situation was unblocked after the seventh failed vote. The group leaders went up to the Quirinale Palace to ask Mattarella to remain in office and got the answer: «I had other plans for the future but I’m available». Despite his age, 80 years old last July 23, and after having repeatedly stressed that he wished to retire to private life, the outgoing Head of State agreed to continue in office also because the «serious emergency on the health, economic and social front call for a sense of responsibility and respect for the decisions of the Parliament». These conditions «do not allow one to shirk the duties to which one is called and naturally must prevail over other considerations and different personal perspectives». Now the question that observers ask themselves, especially abroad, is how long will the second term last? In the hope that it will end regularly in 2029, all that remains is to wish a statesman who has put the good of his country before himself good luck in his work.