from
Oliver Meiler, Rome
And suddenly everything happened very quickly. Italy’s parliament on Saturday, after a week of capers by self-proclaimed kingmakers, surrendered to its own inability to elect a new president of the republic, instead confirming Sergio Mattarella in office, a scenario he had very specifically not wanted. In the decisive ballot, 759 of the 1009 parliamentarians and regional representatives voted for Mattarella. So 505 votes would have been necessary. The twelfth head of state in the history of Republican Italy is only the second to be re-elected.