"The sense of responsibility requires me not to shirk and prevails over my ideas and even my private life".

With a very short speech Sergio Mattarella agrees to hold the leadership of the Quirinale after seven years and for another seven years, accepting the request of the group leaders of the majority and 759 parliamentarians who have written his name on the ballot. The meeting of the Parliament in joint session for the traditional oath will be held on Thursday 3 February.

After a grueling week in which names and leaders have ended up in the meat grinder, Mattarella speaks of duty, of ongoing emergencies and of the need to "interpret" the needs of citizens that have sensationally emerged through the thrust of Parliament that has overwhelmed the parties unable to express an alternative name to yours.

"The difficult days spent for the election of the presidency of the Republic during the great emergency that we are still going through on the health, economic and social side - said, behind them the presidents of the Chamber and Senate Roberto Fico and Elisabetta Casellati in the rite of communicating the outcome of the elections - they recall a sense of responsibility and respect for the decisions of the Parliament ".

"DIFFICULT DAYS" - And difficult days they really were. Amidst the swirl of names that were punctually burned, agreements that seemed one step away and instead, a moment later, vanished into thin air. In the end, in Parliament, only one name collects more than three hundred preferences, as well as in Mattarella, and it is that of Casellati, herself a victim of the snipers of her coalition.The center-right is the first to have to deal with a disastrous result.

SALVINI UNDER SIEGE - "I am relieved because there was a risk of going on between vetoes and quarrels. And I am calm because I have made all possible proposals, especially on the female front". Matteo Salvini tries to sing victory while he is literally under siege . The aspiring "kingmaker" fails to complete the task expected for the coalition leader: to elect a center-right name. The desperate backlash is the head of the secret services Elisabetta Belloni, a last attempt at an agreement with Giuseppe Conte and the Cinquestelle. Which not only fails but also creates an irreparable crack with Forza Italia: there are those who swear that with Antonio Tajani, who in the meantime is getting closer and closer to Matteo Renzi and his centrist project, he has come close to physical confrontation. Giorgia Meloni, at the news that Salvini agreed to vote Mattarella, did not "want to believe": "The parliamentary center-right no longer exists, I think it must have representation. We need to refound the center-right from the beginning out of respect for the people who want to change, we need to start over and Fdi assumes this responsibility ".

M5S IN CHAOS - On the Cinquestelle front it is not much better: the large group of Great Grillini voters, potentially decisive for the election, is dispersed among contiani, dimaiani and snipers of both. Now the political leader Giuseppe Conte is risking his head, at the center of a crossfire inside the M5s and beyond. "I have never negotiated under the table" or "the three-card game", he defends himself from those who accuse him of having plotted with Salvini behind the allies of the "progressive" coalition. But also for him the last Belloni card is the beginning of the end.

READ EXULT BUT ... - Since yesterday morning the secretary of the Democratic Party has been exulting: "Thank you President", is the banner that tweets when the agreement on the Mattarella bis is now decided. "For us Mattarella would be the ideal solution", he repeats, immediately underlining that it was one of the hypotheses he had put on the table. With the Cinquestelle, however, the agreement is shaky: "There have been frictions, but everything has been clarified", he assures. But the resurrected yellow-green alliance put him in serious trouble.

THE WORLD WATCHES US - Meanwhile, Europe's eyes are on us. From France, to the United Kingdom, to Spain and arriving overseas, the judgment is almost unanimous: the Italian parties are in the darkest crisis, unable to build an understanding and an alternative. But many agree that in the chaos the idea of leaving everything as it is is the best way to guarantee stability to a country that has to manage billions of NRP funds.

"A victory for Italy in a delicate moment" but a "terrible defeat for the parties and for Italian politics", summarizes the Spanish newspaper El País . Mattarella's is a choice that allows the country to "protect stability and figures like Draghi", adds the newspaper published in Madrid.

According to the Financial Times , the president is "the only one able to guarantee stability to the fragile Draghi government so that it could survive". His confirmation "will satisfy the Italian business community and international markets, which have closely followed events fearing that a disorderly and divisive presidential election could derail the country's reform momentum. Italy - recalls the FT - is the largest recipient of funds from the EU Recovery Fund for 750 billion euros, but must respect an ambitious timetable of reforms to obtain each tranche of funds. Draghi himself was considered a potential successor to Mattarella, but it was feared that his rise the presidency could trigger the collapse of the government and push Italy to early elections ".

For Le Monde "it took a disastrous day for the leaders of the main Italian political forces to come to terms with the facts and decide to put an end to a hopeless struggle".

Equally merciless were the judgments of the American media. The New York Times clearly speaks of "political chaos". According to the Washington Post, "a country that depends only on two figures", precisely Mattarella and Draghi, "is not at all stable, and the negotiations have highlighted all the fractures".

(Unioneonline / D)

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