Italy center-left says to make new proposal on state president
ROME | Thu Apr 18, 2013 1:06pm EDT
(Reuters) - Italian center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani said on Thursday that his party will draw up a new proposal to try to elect a state president and then present it to the rest of parliament.
The center-left's first candidate for president, former Senate speaker Franco Marini, failed to win enough votes in the first round of voting after he was rejected by scores of rebels from Bersani's Democratic Party (PD).
"We have to recognize that a new phase has opened," said Bersani in a statement that seemed to indicate he had decided to seek a new candidate.
He said the PD would decide on a new "proposal" at a party meeting and would then present this to the other parties for discussion.
(Reporting By Gavin Jones; editing by James Mackenzie)
