(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 29 - President Sergio Mattarella was re-elected for a fresh seven year term as Italian president in an eighth presidential ballot Saturday evening.
Majority whips had left the Quirinale presidential palace saying only "it went well" after a meeting in which they asked the 80-year-old president to agree to rethink his retirement plans and serve a second term.
"President Mattarella obviously said he was willing "to be re-elected)" said Südtiroler Volkspartei Senate Whip Julia Unterberger. Mixed caucus whip Loredana De Petris said Mattarella "told us he had other plans, that he thought his mandate was over, but that he has always been respectful of parliament".
Centre-left Democratic Party (PD) leader Enrico Letta said "I want to say a big thank you to President Mattarella for the choice which is a choice of generosity towards the country and is today fundamental, important and necessary. I think it is a beautiful day for Italy and important for Italian politics.
"They have been difficult days, full of tension, which have shown a blocked, stopped, politics, playing with personal issues, not able to deal with real, concrete issues, to find solutions. "Our country needs a political renewal and rules, and to enter a new phase".
He added "I think the government emerges stronger because the government majority made a very complicated choice, it could have split but it stayed united. We did a good job together...the premier emerges stronger because he has beside him a president who gave him strength over the last 11 months".
Premier Mario Draghi reportedly told Mattarella and party leaders it was right for the head of state to remain in place "for the good and stability of the country", sources said.
The premier and former European Central Bank president urged party leaders to ask Mattarella to reconsider his oft-stated wish to retire, although Draghi also stressed that the decision was in parliament's hands.
Rightwing League party leader and former deputy premier and anti-migrant interior minister Matteo Salvini said "we don't think it is serious to continue with Nos and cross-vetoes and (we should) ask the president to reconsider (his retirement from public life)".
""Draghi should stay on as premier and Mattarella should stay at the Quirinale (presidential palace".
PD leader and former premier Letta had also thrown the PD's weight behind Mattarella's re-election by saying "we should heed the wisdom of the chambers" referring to the high vote for the outgoing president in the sixth ballot, 366 out of a required majority of 505.
Mattarella got even more, 387 votes, in the seventh ballot Saturday and was widely expected to pass the 505 mark needed to be elected Saturday evening.
Mattarella's precedessor Giorgio Napolitano is the only Italian president to have been re-elected, albeit reluctantly, serving another two years before standing down in 2015.
One of Salvini's two partners, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party, had said it was backing former House Speaker Pier Ferdinando Casini in a break with its rightwing allies.
But Casini also said "parliament must ask Mattarella to stay in place", saying he himself was dropping out of the race.
Leading PD Senator Andrea Marcucci said "this afternoon we will re-elect a great president".
Italia Viva (IV) leader Matteo Renzi, another former premier said "the agreement on Mattarella is a great joy".
Health Minister and leftwing Free and Equal (LeU) party leader Roberto Speranza described the likely re-election as a "very great joy".
Letta tweeted a photo of Mattarella saying "thank you president".
The other rightwing party leader, opposition Brothers of Italy (FdI) chief Giorgia Meloni, said she could not believe that Salvini was calling for Mattarella to stay on and said she would be "amazed" if the president agreed to the call.
Letta, the PD leader, said previously a roster of names had been discussed with formerly populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Conte and Salvini including then bookies' favourite Draghi, Mattarella, Justice Minister Marta Cartabia, former justice minister Paola Severino, intelligence chief Elisabetta Belloni, Constitutional Court chief and former premier Giuliano Amato and Casini.
Neither the centre-left or the centre-right bloc had enough votes on its own to carry the election.
The centre right abstained in the sixth ballot while the centre left cast blank ballots.
There were two rounds of voting scheduled on both Saturday and Sunday. In the past it has taken as many as 23 rounds to elect a new president.
On Friday 75-year-old Senate Speaker Elisabetta Casellati failed in her bid to become Italy's first female president.
A member of ex-premier Berlusconi's FI party, a devout anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage Catholic, she had been criticised for allegedly over-using a State jet and for a past Berlusconi majority vote approving a motion that a 17-year-old Moroccan runaway dancer the three-time ex-premier and media mogul paid for sex with was in fact the niece of late Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak.
The centre right said she was a bipartisan institutional figure of unimpeachable standing.
Renzi objected to Belloni, the other touted woman caniddate, saying she might have confidential information on officials and be able to blackmail them.
The seventh ballot of the 1,009 grand electors - lawmakers from both houses of parliament and regional representatives - started at 09:30 Saturday and the count ended at about 13:45.
There will be an eighth ballot Saturday evening, with two more scheduled on Sunday if needed, although that likelihood is scant given the support Mattarella now has.
A simple majority of the 1,009 electors is needed to elect a new president, so the magic number is 505.
In the fifth ballot Casellati got 382 votes while 406 grand electors abstained.
The centre right's decision to vote for Casellati caused tension within the broad coalition supporting Draghi's government.
Despite polling in the single figures, Draghi had remained the bookies' favourite to get the top institutional post in the eurozone's third-largest economy and his chances were reportedly rising as the stalemate continued.
But many MPs feared the election to the presidency of the euro's saviour as ECB chief would lead to them losing their seats in a snap election a year before the natural end of the parliamentary term.
Many MPs and the domestic and international business community were also worried that the departure of Mr 'Whatever It Takes' might jeopardise key reforms to the justice and tax systems and public administration needed to secure almost 200 billion euros in EU post-COVID recovery funds, helping turn Italy into a more modern, efficient and greener economy over the next few years.
The president is a largely ceremonial figure representing national unity and upholding the Constitution as a sort of moral compass for the nation, but the person can wield power in government crises by naming premiers and rejecting ministers, while they may also ask parliament to reconsider legislation.
League heavyweight Giancarlo Giorgetti said the government now needed "tweaking" to address issues in a "more constructive" way and avert a "year-long and damaging election campaign".
Letta said it was up to Draghi to decide on any possible reshuffle. Salvini said he hoped the "quarrels" among majority parties over the presidential election would not impact the government.
Conte said "we achieved all our goals apart from not electing a woman".
Mattarella is expected to be sworn in and give his inaugural address on Thursday, the day his current term ends.
(ANSA).