By John Phillips
ROME
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano resigned Wednesday, plunging the country into uncertainty in a major test for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s coalition government.
Napolitano quit before the end of his second term at the Quirinal Palace after telling the nation that at age 89 he was no longer fit enough to serve as head of state.
Renzi said that a new president would be elected by February while parliamentary sources said a first vote by the electoral college, which chooses the president, was expected Jan. 29.
Senate President Pietro Grasso is now acting head of state until a new president is elected.
A constellation of names of possible new presidents is being discussed in the Italian media ranging from former mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni to former EU Commission President Romano Prodi, who has indicated he could be persuaded to take the job should he have sufficient support across the political spectrum.
While feminist organizations have called for a woman to become Italy’s first president.
Former EU commissioner and former foreign minister Emma Bonino was considered the most likely woman candidate, but she disclosed last week that she was suffering from lung cancer and was therefore out of the race.
Meanwhile, Italy’s Parliament Wednesday rejected a motion by the opposition parties calling for a freeze in parliamentary reforms until the new president was elected.
While the president in Italy theoretically is largely a ceremonial post, Napolitano, a former communist, has arguably transformed Italian institutions as he selected Renzi and two other prime ministers, Mario Monti and Enrico Letta, without holding elections.
All three were chosen by Napolitano for the sake of national expediency so as to provide continuity and stability as Italy battled to emerge from a major recession.
The nomination of Remzi, a leader of the former communist Democratic Party, was backed by Napolitano in Feb. 2014 in large part to prevent the radical Five Star Movement, M5S, from taking office even though the party had won the largest number of votes.
