Giorgio Napolitano, Italy's president, resigns
Date January 15, 2015 - 12:25PM
Alvise Armellini
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano with his wife Clio as they leave the Quirinale presidential palace in Rome on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters
Rome: A presidential election race opened in Italy when incumbent Giorgio Napolitano, 89, cut short his current mandate, which came at the tail end of a record-length tenure.
His decision, officially declared on Wednesday, formalised a move he announced two weeks ago, citing the strains of old age.
Letters of resignation from the president were delivered to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and the speakers of both houses of parliament. The leader of the upper chamber, Senate speaker Pietro Grasso, is to act as interim president until the election of a successor.
Speculation is rife on who will replace Mr Napolitano. Italy's 12th head of state is due to be elected by a congress of just more than 1,000 national and regional lawmakers, scheduled to start voting on January 29. Mr Renzi is counting on concluding the process within a couple of days.
"Reasonably, we will have the next president of the republic at the end of the month", he said.
Laura Garavini, a lawmaker from Mr Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), said: "There are no names at the moment, but some that have been dropped in the press could be candidates".
She mentioned former PD leader and former Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, former premier Giuliano Amato, and constitutional court judge Sergio Mattarella as possibilities.
The Italian president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, ruled himself out of the race. "It is a great honour to be considered, but it is not my job", he told the German newspaper Die Zeit.
Mr Renzi was due to chair a party meeting on the presidential election on Friday. As the largest force in parliament, the PD is expected to come up with a name first, and then try to secure backing for it from other parties.
In the presidential Quirinale palace, Mr Napolitano was saluted by a guard of honour as a band played the national anthem. Escorted by his wife, Clio, he bade farewell, hugging and kissing his aides. As he was driven away, he waved at cheering crowds.
Mr Napolitano is the only two-term president Italy has ever had. Elected by parliament for the first time in 2006, he reluctantly agreed to start a second seven-year mandate two years ago, after there was no agreement on a successor. At the time, he warned he would not last a full term.
In a farewell speech, the president described his years in office as "long and tormented". On Tuesday, he said he was "happy to go home" and described the Quirinale, a former papal residence, as "very beautiful" but "a bit like a prison".
Mr Napolitano was in charge during four changes of government and the gravest recession since World War II. In late 2011, as the country slid near default, he called on technocrat Mario Monti to replace the scandal-weakened Silvio Berlusconi as premier.
Mr Renzi paid tribute to him with a Twitter message: "#ThankyouPresident."
In a telegram, German President Joachim Gauck thanked his counterpart for shaping political life in Italy and Europe with "wisdom and foresight," and for working with him on promoting Italo-German reconciliation over wartime Nazi massacres.
"I am spiritually close to you and I wish to express my feelings of sincere respect and real appreciation for your generous and exemplary service to the Italian nation," Pope Francis told the parting statesman in a message from Sri Lanka, where he was visiting.
As an ex-head of state, Mr Napolitano will be given a lifelong seat in the Senate and will be eligible to vote on his successor.
In Italy, presidents are key establishment figures. They act as national figureheads, but their role is not just ceremonial, as in Germany, for example. They can dissolve parliament and call early elections. They can also broker government coalition talks and nominate prime ministers.
They can also veto legislation if they deem it unconstitutional and act as head the judiciary. In exceptional circumstances, they can issue pardons to convicts - a grace Mr Napolitano did not grant Berlusconi, who was found guilty of tax fraud in 2013.
Daniela Santanche, from the former premier's Forza Italia party, took him to task for that. She accused the president of failing to "stop the political and judicial persecution of Silvio Berlusconi", and said she was glad to see him go.
MCT
