Giorgio Napolitano will resign in the late morning of today as President of the Republic by signing three farewell letters which will be immediately delivered by the general secretary of the Quirinale, Donato Marra, to the president of the Senate, Pietro Grasso, to the president of the Chamber, Laura Boldrini, and to the president of the Council, Matteo Renzi.
Immediately afterwards Napolitano will leave the Colle and return to his private home in the Monti district, a few hundred meters from the Quirinale, while at Palazzo Giustiniani he will be substituted for the president of the Senate, Grasso.
Within fifteen days, the Speaker of the Chamber will convene Parliament in a joint session for the election of the new president, in which Napolitano himself will participate in his new capacity as senator for life.
The race for the succession is wide open but Prime Minister Renzi is convinced that the white smoke could come from the fourth vote. In view of the election, Renzi has declared that he will not present a list of candidates but a dry name, on which he hopes to gather the consensus necessary for a rapid election of the new Head of State. He also added that he will not be a technician but a politician.
Even before the other political forces, however, Renzi will have to convince his party to support the candidate convincingly, avoiding the missteps that the Democratic Party took under the secretariat of Pierluigi Bersani, unleashing snipers and failing first the election of Franco Marini and then that by Romano Prodi.
