Italy President Mattarella set for 2nd term

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Italian President Sergio Mattarella has agreed to serve a second term after coalition parties failed to agree on a compromise candidate for the office.

Mattarella, 80, had ruled out remaining in office, but with the country’s political stability at risk, it was considered unlikely he would resist pressure to stay on, reports Reuters.

Mattarella’s “willingness to serve a second term … shows his sense of responsibility and his attachment to the country and its institutions”, Regional Affairs Minister Mariastella Gelmini said in a statement.

The leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) Enrico Letta, who had championed Mattarella’s re-election, spoke to reporters to express his “enormous thanks to President Mattarella for his generous choice towards the country”.

Parliamentary chiefs went to the president’s palace in central Rome to ask him to remain in office, after lawmakers failed to elect a president on Saturday after seven rounds of voting.

There was no immediate comment from the president himself.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who failed to find backing for his own ambitions for the job, earlier called Mattarella and also urged him to stay on, a political source said.

It is the second time in succession that a president has been asked to renew his seven-year mandate.

In 2013, political leaders appealed to the then head of state, Giorgio Napolitano, who was almost 90, after they too failed to find a consensus candidate.

Napolitano reluctantly agreed, but stood aside two years later after a new government was installed. Mattarella will almost certainly do the same once the political situation allows it, many commentators have said.