Sergio Mattarella is the new president of Italy

Roma.- The Italian politician and jurist Sergio Mattarella, 73 years old, a figure on whom the Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, opted, was elected today as the new president of Italy in the fourth round of voting following having surpassed the absolute majority of 505 votes in the Parliament.

The former judge of the Constitutional Court was elected in a vote of the Parliament meeting in a joint session in which a total of 1,009 voters, including deputies, senators, representatives of regions and senators for life, cast their votes.

When the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Laura Boldrini, read the ballot that confirmed her election, the parliament broke out in a loud applause, although it was not a surprise, since according to calculations, it would far exceed the required votes.

At the time of the election, Mattarella was in a room of the Constitutional Court, where, as protocol requires, Boldrini approached to inform him of the results of the votes.

«My thoughts go, above all and above all, to the difficulties and hopes of our compatriots. “Just this is enough,” he said at the insistence of the journalists upon hearing the news.

Mattarella obtained 665 votes, including those of all the parliamentarians of the Democratic Party (PD), the New Center Right (NCD), the centrist parties and the Left, Ecology and Freedom parties.

The candidate proposed by the 5 Star Movement, led by comedian Beppe Grillo, magistrate Ferdinando Imposimato, was left with 127 votes and there were 105 blank ballots corresponding to the members of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, who had announced their dissent.

Another of the winners of today’s contest is the Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, who, according to the weekly Panorama, proposed Mattarella “unilaterally” in a “masterpiece” of political tactics.

In a tweet in which he highlighted the figure of Mattarella, Renzi today defined him as “a good politician”, a man “of legality”, highlighting among other aspects his “fight once morest the mafia.”

The figure of Mattarella, a former Christian Democrat close to the left, with a long but discreet career, managed to unify Renzi’s Democratic Party, which in recent months had not been able to agree on any issue.

Likewise, following some disagreements, the NCD legislators – Renzi’s allies led by the Minister of the Interior, Angelino Alfaro – agreed this morning to support the candidacy.

For his part, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi rejected the election and was virtually out of the game, having not even been consulted regarding the election of an old political rival.

The party of the “former Cavaliere” voted blank, considering it “a betrayal” for not having been consulted, which is why they announced the end of the so-called Nazarene Pact, the agreement they maintained to carry out some constitutional reforms and the new electoral system.

The twelfth president of the Italian Republic now has to receive the investiture in Parliament, where he will take the oath of office and give a speech, in an event that might be held on Monday.

The new president will replace Giorgio Napolitano, who resigned on January 14 following nine years of service and a life dedicated to politics, due to “the limitations and difficulties” derived from his age, 89 years.

Matarella, born in Palermo in 1941, had an open confrontation with the Italian mafia following the death of his brother, Piersanti Mattarella, murdered by Cosa Nostra on January 6, 1980, when he was president of the Sicily region.

He was Minister of Relations with Parliament during the government of Ciriaco De Mita from 1988 to 1989 and of Education with Giulio Andreotti, between 1989 and 1990, a position from which he resigned following the approval of the Mammì law, which granted three television channels to Mediaset. , Berlusconi’s media empire.

He later held the positions of vice president of the Council of Ministers, during the years 1998 and 1999, and head of Defense from 1999 to 2000, in the left-wing government of Massimo D’Alema.

As Defense Minister, he supported reform that abolished conscription while supporting NATO’s invasion of Yugoslavia once morest former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.

In 2011 he was elected judge of the Constitutional Court by the Parliament of his country.