Premier Matteo Renzi led a Democratic Party (PD) delegation as they started a round of talks with the leaders of other parties - though centre-right chief Silvio Berlusconi ducked out of the first session - on Tuesday ahead of this week's vote for a new president. Lawmakers from both houses of parliament and regional representatives will start voting to elect a new head of State on Thursday.
But Renzi has told the centre-left PD to cast blank papers in the first three ballots, saying the crucial vote will be the fourth on Saturday. The number of votes needed to elect a new head of State drops to a simple majority of the 1,009 so-called 'grand electors' in the fourth round, or 505 votes.
Tuesday's talks are expected to centre on the method Renzi will use to select a candidate to replace 89-year-old Giorgio Napolitano, who resigned this month, and be Italian politics' arbiter for the next seven years.
The premier is not expected to name the candidate he has in mind, but talk about the characteristics the new head of State should have. The consultations started at the PD's Rome headquarters with meetings with some junior partners in Renzi's coalition government, including Interior Minister Angelino Alfano's New Centre Right (NCD) party. Tuesday's key meeting will take place at around 19:00 local time when Renzi encounters three-time premier Silvio Berlusconi, the leader of the opposition, centre-right Forza Italia party.
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) has said it will not take part in Tuesday's talks. But a group of lawmakers that used to belong to the M5S, but have left or been expelled, will meet the premier's party at around 21:00 Tuesday , PD Deputy Secretary Lorenzo Guerini said.
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