Voting for Italy’s president fails again; no political deal

By FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Insistence by Italy’s center-right bloc that their candidate becomes the nation’s president has backfired. Their increasingly frustrated political opponents abstained in the first of two rounds Friday of so far fruitless balloting in Parliament to elect a new head of state. Tensions grew among the uneasy rivals forming Premier Mario Draghi’s pandemic unity government. A second round of balloting was also inconclusive. At the start of the day, right-wing League leader Matteo Salvini declared that Parliament’s center-right parties would back the current senate president for the post of head of state. But the candidate, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, gathered far short of the minimum 505 required votes.