Premier Matteo Renzi met Forza
Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi for talks on Wednesday, the eve
of the start of voting for Italy's next president after Giorgio
Napolitano quit this month.
The meeting took place in the premier's office in Palazzo
Chigi.
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), meanwhile,
presented 10 presidential candidates it will submit to a
grassroots vote on leader Beppe Grillo's blog.
They are Pierluigi Bersani, Raffaele Cantone, Lorenza
Carlassare, Nino Di Matteo, Ferdinando Imposimato, Elio
Lannutti, Paolo Maddalena, Romano Prodi, Salvatore Settis and
Gustavo Zagrebelsky.
Renzi told a meeting of PD Senators earlier on Wednesday
that Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) is against the idea of a PD
candidate becoming Italy's next president, ANSA sources said.
But the premier added that he would not accept "vetoes"
from the opposition centre-right group.
"We had a civil meeting," Renzi said, referring to an
encounter with FI representatives on Tuesday as part of talks
with other parties on the upcoming presidential election at
which Berlusconi did not take part.
"They don't want anyone with a past as an activist in our
party. We cannot accept vetoes".
Renzi said that the so-called Nazareno Pact he struck with
Berlusconi last year for a new election law and an overhaul of
Italy's slow, costly political machinery does not mean the PD
will accept the three-time premier and centre-right leader's
candidate for next Italian president.
FI last week mooted forward former defence minister and
ex-foreign minister Antonio Martino as its first candidate, but
is believed to be considering other names.
Renzi told the meeting that a decision had not yet been
made on who the centre-left group's presidential candidate will
be.
He added that the final decision on whether the PD should
cast blank ballots in the first three rounds of voting, as he
has indicated the party will instruct its lawmakers to do, will
be made on Thursday.
"Even if the newspapers say that a different person is
certain to be the candidate every day, the truth is that there
is no name yet, as we have decided to find it together," Renzi
told the PD Senators, according to the sources.
"Tomorrow we'll have to decide whether to go with the
proposal of blank papers (in the first three votes), which
continues to be the best option for me. But we'll decide
together".
Renzi has previously been quoted as saying that the
crucial ballot will be the fourth round on Saturday, when the
number of votes needed to elect a new head of State will drop to
a simple majority of the 1,009 so-called 'grand electors' -
lawmakers from both houses of parliament and regional
representatives - or 505 votes.
He added that the PD "cannot get it wrong" this time,
after the 2013 presidential vote, in which two candidates
proposed by former PD leader Bersani were sunk by internal
rebellions within the party.
In the case of the second candidate, two-time premier
Prodi, an estimated 101 PD members voted against, forcing
Bersani and the leaders of other parties to beg Giorgio
Napolitano to embark on a second term as president. Napolitano,
89, resigned earlier this month.
After speaking to his party's Senators, Renzi had a
half-hour face-to-face with Bersani, now a senior member of a PD
minority that is harshly critical of the premier's leadership.
The M5S refused to take part in the round of talks with
Renzi on Tuesday, alleging it was pointless as the premier was
set to decide on the next president with Berlusconi.
The Northern League and the small rightwing Brothers of
Italy (FdI) party announced Wednesday that their presidential
candidate will be 71-year-old journalist Vittorio Feltri, the
former editor-in-chief of several right-leaning dailies.
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