Renzi aims for new president by 4th vote

(ANSA) - Rome, January 26 - Premier Matteo Renzi told lawmakers from his center-left Democratic Party (PD) on Monday that the "decisive vote" to elect Italy's new president will be the fourth ballot on "Saturday morning", ANSA sources said. An assembly of lawmakers from both houses of parliament plus regional representatives will start voting to elect a new head of State on Thursday, but Renzi has told the PD to cast blank papers in the first three ballots, sources said. 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. Renzi is set to meet the representatives of other parties, including three-time premier Silvio Berlusconi, the leader of the opposition centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party, on Tuesday for talks on Giorgio Napolitano's successor as president. The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), however, has declined Renzi's invitation for talks, with MP Roberto Fico calling Renzi's invitation "a bluff". "We are not the ones who pulled back," said Fico. "Renzi is the one refusing to give out the names...the Democratic Party (PD) is bluffing". Fico said the M5S has asked Renzi for a shortlist of candidates but been rebuffed. The premier has also refused to talk with the party about presidential possibilities, added Fico.
    The premier said that the PD will propose just one name as a candidate to be Italy's next president to other parties, rather than giving a list of names for them to choose from, ANSA sources said. The other parties will be given a simple yes-no choice of whether to back the candidate the PD proposes, Renzi said, according to the sources. He also said that this week's vote for a new president was a chance for the centre-left group to bury the "fiasco" of the 2013 head of State elections, when two candidates put forward by former PD leader Pier Luigi Bersani were sunk by internal dissenters. In the case of the second candidate, two-time premier Romano Prodi, an estimated 101 PD members voted against during the secret ballot, forcing Bersani and the leaders of other parties to beg Napolitano to embark on a second term as president. Napolitano reluctantly did so to avoid a crisis, becoming the first Italian president to be re-elected, but the 89-year-old stressed this was a temporary situation. He resigned earlier this month. "The 2013 fiasco is on everyone's CV," Renzi said. "Today we have the opportunity to make up for it...I'm not betting on your loyalty, but on your intelligence". While calling for unity, however, Renzi also said he defended "the right to dissent". He stressed that past presidents such as Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Francesco Cossiga were elected despite "snipers", numbering 180 and 170 respectively, who used the secret vote to buck the party line. The premier also said that it was an "anomaly" that Italy has never had a woman president. Stefano Fassina, a senior member of a minority of PD members who are harshly critical of Renzi's leadership, said Monday that he agreed that the party should seek a united line on the candidate to be next president.