Italian Prime Minister Draghi asks Mattarella to remain president

President Sergio Mattarella (80) had made it very clear in advance that he wanted to retire after his seven-year mandate, which ends in early February. Over the past week, under the watchful eye of TV cameras, he made a significant visit to his new apartment. “He has already lost the deposit for that flat,” joked a satirical website.

That prediction quickly came true. On Saturday, the leaders of the main political parties in Italy reached an agreement: they want Mattarella to stay on as president for longer and that Prime Minister Mario Draghi (74) continues to lead the Italian government. White smoke is expected on Saturday night’s eighth vote and Mattarella is likely to be re-elected as president.

That is exceptional, but it has happened before. In 2013, incumbent President Giorgio Napolitano, then 87, suffered the same. He was also given a second term, although he had made it crystal clear beforehand that he no longer wanted to remain president.

Crucial role for Draghi

An important pacesetter behind the pact to keep Mattarella in the presidential palace turned out to be Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who was nevertheless the top favorite to succeed him. Draghi has been in talks with political leaders in recent days and had a personal meeting with Mattarella. Continuing to govern with the same prime minister and president appears to be the best guarantee of the stability of the country and of the Italian political system at the moment.

Draghi wants to continue on the path of reform, so that Italy can secure much-needed European resources (from the corona reconstruction fund). Between June and December, it is about 50 billion euros.

So, with Draghi at the helm of the government – ​​until next year’s parliamentary elections – and Mattarella in the presidential palace, everything in Italy will just stay the same? Nope. Deep wounds have been made this week. In Italy, the president is not elected by the people, but by 1,009 members of parliament, senators and representatives of the regions. The centre-left and right-wing members separately had insufficient votes, so they had to agree on a successor to Mattarella. It did not work. Seven rounds of voting in six days yielded no winner.

There were multiple vetoes against Draghi, some out of personal distaste. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi did not want Draghi, but neither did Giuseppe Conte of the Five Star Movement, because Draghi replaced him as Prime Minister in February 2021. The centre-left did not want to approve a candidate of the right-wing signature, and vice versa. Conflict also arose within the coalitions themselves. The center-right bloc, in particular, is battered from the fray. The Italian people watched the tug-of-war in parliament with growing frustration and disbelief.

There was more than personal distaste for Draghi among some politicians. If the prime minister were to move to the presidential palace, a new head of government had to be found at the same time. That turned out to be too complicated a political exercise for Italian administrators in recent weeks. “It is too complex to change not one, but two wheels at the same time in the middle of the race,” said political scientist Franco Pavoncello in Rome, who speaks of the “best possible outcome, given the circumstances”.