Reuters
Giorgio Napolitano, Italy’s 87-year-old head of state, was elected by parliament for a second term on Saturday as the country’s deadlocked parties begged him to remain in office to break the impasse resulting from inconclusive general elections held two months ago.
Mr Napolitano had previously rejected requests to stand for an unprecedented second term, with his seven-year mandate due to end in mid-May. But Italy’s most respected statesman caved in on Saturday after it became obvious that a deeply divided parliament was incapable of reaching an agreement on his successor after five rounds of voting.
Italian commentators on all sides saw the election of Mr Napolitano as the clearest indictment of the political system, with the centre-left Democratic party in particular a victim of bitter infighting leaving it on the brink of demise. Party leader Pierluigi Bersani handed in his resignation on Friday night after a party revolt led to the defeat of his candidate, former prime minister Romano Prodi, as head of state.
The deal to re-elect Mr Napolitano was struck by the Democrats along with caretaker prime minister Mario Monti, who leads a small centrist party, and Silvio Berlusconi, head of the centre-right People of Liberty.
But Beppe Grillo, the comic activist leading the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, denounced the agreement as a “coup d’état” and set out to drive to Rome from northern Italy to join his supporters already venting their anger outside parliament.
“There are decisive moments in the history of a nation,” he blogged. “Tonight I will be in front of parliament. I will stay there as long as is necessary. There have to be millions of us.”
Riot police sealed off the area around parliament as hundreds of protesters from the Five Star Movement and far-left and extreme right groups started to converge. Leftwing groups were waving red banners and chanting “What’s the solution? Revolution.”
Inside parliament deputies of his movement, the third largest force after winning a quarter of the vote in February’s general elections, voted for Stefano Rodota, a leftwing academic and jurist, as their candidate. The final count at parliament’s sixth attempt to elect a head of state saw Mr Napolitano take 738 votes and Mr Rodota 217.
Renato Brunetta, parliamentary leader of the centre-right, denounced Mr Grillo’s protest as “comic Fascism”, with other politicians making comparisons with the 1922 March on Rome of former dictator Benito Mussolini. Speakers of parliament’s two chambers described Mr Grillo’s “coup” remark as slanderous.
Despite the respect held for Mr Napolitano among many Italians, the manner of his election by the mainstream parties after a closed doors deal is likely to fuel support for the Five Star Movement after riding a wave of popular anger with the political elite and Mr Monti’s austerity policies in the February elections.
Nicholas Spiro, a sovereign risk analyst, said Mr Napolitano’s election was “the clearest indication yet of the utter dysfunctionality of Italian politics . . . the eurozone’s third-largest economy is, to all intents and purposes, ungovernable.”
Mr Napolitano, said by those close to him to be furious with the inability of the country’s politicians to bury their differences and reach agreement on a new government, is expected to relaunch efforts to form a new administration with a limited mandate to reform the electoral law and initiate measures to drag Italy out of its longest postwar recession.
Mr Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party reiterated its willingness to join a “grand coalition”, a solution that Mr Bersani had repeatedly rejected but one the Democrats might now be forced to consider.
Once elections are held, possibly by October, and a new government is formed then Mr Napolitano would be likely to step down, commentators said.
The Democrats now face the task of finding a new leader, with the leftwing reeling from its gravest crisis since the dissolution of the Communist party in 1991. Matteo Renzi, the young reformist mayor of Florence who in recent weeks had been increasingly vocal in his attacks on Mr Bersani, is seen as the leading contender. But his candidacy could also split the party should its more leftist factions decide to break away.
For the moment opinion polls give a lead to Mr Berlusconi’s centre-right. The former three-time prime minister is clearly relishing the prospect of campaigning against his disintegrating rivals, though wary of the momentum behind Mr Grillo who can take the most credit for exacerbating the faultlines within the Democrats.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013.
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