Italy's re-elected President Sergio Mattarella
International Desk
Italian President Sergio Mattarella was elected to a second term by the parliament gathered in a joint session in the eighth round of voting on Saturday, Xinhua reported.
The following is a profile of Mattarella.
Mattarella, 80, was born in Palermo, the capital city of Italian island region Sicily. In his earlier years, after graduating in law at the University of Rome, he qualified as a lawyer and taught parliamentary law at the university of Palermo until 1983 when he was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies, or the lower chamber, for the first time.
He became deputy prime minister in October 1998 and Minister of Defence from December 1999 to the June 2001 elections. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies until 2008 and a member of Italy's Constitutional Court from 2011 to 2015. He was elected president of Italy on Jan. 31, 2015, and his first term will officially end on February 3.
Mattarella has repeatedly showed a strong moral authority in the past seven years, during which several coalition governments collapsed.
He has proved a reassuring figure for the country during the past two difficult years of COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, he ultimately stepped in to avert early general elections after then Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte resigned, and appointed former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi as prime minister.
