(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 29 - Stalemate continued over the Italian
presidential vote Saturday as majority parties said they would
either desert the seventh ballot or cast blank votes in the bid
to elect a successor to President Sergio Mattarella.
On Friday League leader Matteo Salvini and 5-Star Movement
leader Giuseppe Conte touted the head of Italy's intelligence
service, 63-year-old Elisabetta Belloni, to become Italy's first
woman president but this was immediately shot down by allies
including Matteo Renzi's Italia Viva (IV) party.
Mattarella's own star appears to be rising as he gains
increasing votes amid the deadlock despite having repeatedly
insisted he does not want to stay on.
Salvini's partner, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party,
says it is backing former House Speaker Pier Ferdinando Casini
in a break with its rightwing allies.
Democratic Party (PD) leader Enrico Letta said a roster of names
had been discussed with Conte and Salvini including bookies'
favourite and Premier Mario Draghi, Mattarella, Justice Minister
Marta Cartabia, former justice minister Paola Severino, Belloni,
Constitutional Court chief and former premier Giuliano Amato and
Casini.
Salvini said "we don't think it is serious to continue with Nos
and cross-vetoes and (we should) ask the president (Mattarella)
to reconsider (his retirement from public life)".
Neither the centre-left or the centre-right bloc has enough
votes on its own to carry the election.
The centre right abstained in the sixth ballot while the centre
left cast blank ballots.
There are another two rounds of voting on both Saturday and
Sunday, with no end currently in sight. In the past it has taken
as many as 23 rounds to elect a new president.
On Friday 75-yar-old Senate Speaker Elisabetta Casellati failed
in her bid to become Italy's first female president.
A member of ex-premier Berlusconi's FI party, a devout
anti-abortion and anti-gar marriage Catholic, she had been
criticised for over-using a State jet and for a notorious past
Berlusconi majority vote approving a motion that a 17-year-old
Moroccan runaway dancer the three-time ex-premier and media
mogul paid for sex with was in fact the niece of late Egyptian
strongman Hosni Mubarak.
The centre right said she was a bipartisan institutional figure
of unimpeachable standing.
The seventh ballot of the 1,009 grand electors - lawmakers from
both houses of parliament and regional representatives - started
at 09:30 and the count was expected to produce another
inconclusive result.
There will be an eighth ballot Saturday evening, and two more on
Sunday.
A simple majority is needed to elect a successor to President
Sergio Mattarella, so the magic number is 505. In the fifth
ballot Casellati got 382 votes while 406 grand electors
abstained.
Mattarella, who is coming to the end of his seven-year term and
has said he does not want to be re-elected, got 46 votes, down
from 166 in Thursday's fourth ballot.
The centre right's decision to vote for Casellati caused tension
within the broad coalition supporting Draghi's government.
Draghi remains the bookies' favourite to get the top
institutional post in the eurozone's third-largest economy and
his chances are reportedly rising as the stalemate continues but
many MPs fear the election of the euro's saviour as ECB chief
will lead to them losing their seats in a snap election a year
before the natural end of the parliamentary term.
Many MPs and the domestic and international business community
are also worried that his departure may jeopardise key reforms
to the justice and tax systems and public administration needed
to secure almost 200 billion euros in EU post-COVID recovery
funds, helping turn Italy into a more modern, efficient and
greener economy.
The president is a largely ceremonial figure representing
national unity and upholding the Constitution as a sort of moral
compass for the nation, but can wield power in government crises
by naming premiers and may also ask parliament to reconsider
legislation. (ANSA).
Stalemate continues in Italian presidential election
Either stop vetoes or ask Mattarella to reconsider says Salvini