Jan. 30 (UPI) —<\/span> Italian lawmakers voted to re-elect President Sergio Mattarella to a rare second term, election officials said.<\/p>\n Chamber of Deputies Robert Fico on Saturday announced that Mattarella had received 759 out of a possible 1,009 votes from Italy’s “great electors” following an eighth ballot of voting.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n “The difficult days in the election of Republic’s President amid the serious emergency we are all going through — in health, economic and social terms — call for a sense of responsibility and respect for the Parliament’s decision,” Mattarella wrote on Facebook following the results of the election.<\/p>\n Mattarella, 80, had previously ruled out returning to office after the end of his seven-year term on Feb. 3.\n<\/p>\n He becomes just the second Italian president to serve a second term since his predecessor, Giorgio Napolitano, who was re-elected but retired after two years.<\/p>\n Following six days of secret votes in which the members of parliament and regional representatives who elect the president without input from the public failed to produce a candidate, Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who was in the running for president himself, met with Mattarella to ask him to serve a second term.\n<\/p>\n Draghi on Saturday said the re-election of Mattarella was “fantastic news for Italians,” adding he was “grateful to the president for his choice to support the very strong will of Parliament to re-elect him for a second term.”\n<\/p>\n Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League Party and a member of the government coalition, also backed Mattarella as his choice before the final ballot, calling for an end to the chaotic election process.<\/p>\n “Italians don’t deserve more days of confusion,” he said. “I have made numerous proposals, all of a high level, all rejected by the left.”<\/p>\n Giorgia Meloni, leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy Party, was one of the lone voices of dissent for Mattarella’s re-election, saying he was “forced into another term.”\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sergio Mattarella was elected to a rare second term as Italy’s president following six days of secret votes, after having previously announced he would not return to office after his first seven-year term. Photo by Quirinale Palace Press Office\/EPA-EFE Jan. 30 (UPI) — Italian lawmakers voted to re-elect President Sergio Mattarella to a rare second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":773079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-773078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Sergio](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Sergio-Mattarella-elected-to-rare-second-term-as-Italian-president.jpg\" "\\"Sergio")
\n<\/div>\nSergio Mattarella was elected to a rare second term as Italy’s president following six days of secret votes, after having previously announced he would not return to office after his first seven-year term. Photo by Quirinale Palace Press Office\/EPA-EFE<\/p>\n