“We start with the commitment to give birth to a new government. Faced with the complex articulation of the positions that emerged, I came to the conclusion that the recipient of the assignment should be designated as the leader of the centre-left coalition, in the person of the honorable Pier Luigi Bersani“. The Head of State said, Giorgio Napolitano, at the end of this afternoon's conversation at the Quirinale with the leader of the Democratic Party.
"This coalition, having obtained, albeit with a reduced margin, the absolute majority in the Chamber and the relative majority in the Senate - Napolitano continued -, is objectively in a more favorable position to try to create a government, through all the appropriate contacts with the political forces represented in Parliament, and not only with them. I have therefore entrusted the Honorable Pier Luigi Bersani with the task of verifying the existence of certain parliamentary support for forming a government that has the trust of both Chambers. He will tell me the outcome of the operation as soon as possible".
Immediately after the President of the Republic, Bersani himself intervened: “I will carry out this task with the utmost determination – said the secretary of the Democratic Party – and also by seeking the balance and weighting to which the president referred. The government will have to mark a change, a path of constitutional and political-electoral reform. In this vein I will get to work, certainly with a first, necessary reference to the parliamentary forces, which I will ask to meet, but without forgetting an interview with the social forces. I'll start right away."
During his speech, Napolitano hinted that he would have preferred a different solution, namely that of a government supported “by the two major parliamentary forces, a grand coalition government. But the differences between the parties appeared significant, due to the effect of old oppositions which had weakened in 2012, during the support for the Monti government, but which then re-exploded with the break at the end of the year". In any case, the Head of State insisted on the "need for broad agreements to complement the government formation process, which could also take place in more specific and restricted areas".
