“I can't shirk an assumption of responsibility towards the nation”: with these words Giorgio Napolitano has accepted to run again for re-election to the Presidency of the Republic. The Head of State's decision comes as a surprise because on several occasions he had ruled out this possibility, but the very strong pressure expressed in the last few hours by Pd, Pdl and Civic Choice has been right for Napolitano's previous resistance.
The new vote of the Electors will soon begin in Montecitorio: if all goes in the right direction, Napolitano will be confirmed in the Presidency of the Republic in a few hours. It is the first time in Republican history that a President has been re-elected. The political logic of his re-election is that of broad agreements based on the Pd-Pdl-Civic Choice axis.
If Napolitano remains at Colle, it is very probable that in the short term he will give Giuliano Amato the task of forming a government of broad understandings, drawing both in people and in institutional policy programs (cancellation of the Porcellum in primis) and economic policy from the proposals of the Essays activated in recent weeks by the Quirinale.
At this moment, after the disasters combined by Bersani and the splits in the Democratic Party, Napolitano's confirmation is, despite his advanced age (88 years in two months) the best possible choice, the one that most reassures international institutions and financial markets and the only one that can unblock the political situation.
