ITALY: Italian lawmakers hold a second day of voting to elect the country's next President

Record ID: 872801

  • Title: ITALY: Italian lawmakers hold a second day of voting to elect the country's next President
  • Date: 9th May 2006
  • Summary: INCOMING PRIME MINISTER ROMANO PRODI VOTING
  • Embargoed: 24th May 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • City:
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAA3R2WQ9EC1XIT8DEA0CXKAO0I
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  • Story Text: Fresh voting to elect Italy's new president began on Tuesday (May 9) with Giorgio Napolitano, the man backed by the incoming centre-left government, looking closer to become the country's first ex-communist head of state.
    More than 1,000 lawmakers and regional representatives convened to begin the second round of voting after the first ballot on Monday (May 8) proved inconclusive.
    If, as expected, no candidate gets a two-thirds majority -- which is impossible without an agreement between the centre left and the centre right opposition -- a third round will be held later on Tuesday.
    Prime minister-in-waiting Romano Prodi, who narrowly won last month's general election, cannot take office until the new president gives him a mandate.
    Defeated Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's bloc on Monday refused to vote for Napolitano, an 80-year old senator-for-life of the Democrats of the Left (DS), Italy's former communist party.
    But in the Byzantine world of Italian politics, no one expected the election of the president to be a straightforward affair.
    Berlusconi said later on Tuesday his centre-right bloc had still not found any room for agreement with the centre left on who should be Italy's next president.
    His words appeared to rule out any successful election on Tuesday and underscored deep divisions in his coalition.
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