{"id":162549,"date":"2022-02-04T10:07:11","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T02:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=162549"},"modified":"2022-02-04T10:07:11","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T02:07:11","slug":"italys-president-mattarella-sworn-in-for-2nd-term","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=162549","title":{"rendered":"Italy&#8217;s President Mattarella sworn in for 2nd term"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/articles\/stories\/06\/44\/95\/52\/320x180_cmsv2_dc9b9b4a-9f32-5ad1-907a-e6855d829dde-6449552.jpg\" alt=\"Sergio Mattarella delivers his speech at the Quirinale presidential palace in Rome.\" width=\"843\" height=\"474\" title=\"Sergio Mattarella delivers his speech at the Quirinale presidential palace in Rome.\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Sergio Mattarella delivers his speech at the Quirinale presidential palace in Rome<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ROME, Feb 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; Italian President Sergio Mattarella has been sworn into office to serve a second seven-year term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 80-year-old agreed to remain as head of state after Italian political parties failed to agree on a successor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mattarella received 55 rounds of applause from parliament on Thursday, as he spoke about his sense of responsibility during the COVID-19 pandemic and Italy&#8217;s struggling economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe parliament and regional representatives made their decision,\u201d Mattarella said. \u201cFor me, it is a new, unexpected call to responsibility that I cannot and don\u2019t expect to escape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mattarella is the second president to accept another term after Giorgio Napolitano, who agreed to stay on after a similar political stalemate, before eventually leaving office in 2015 when he was nearly 90.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Italian President&#8217;s role is largely ceremonial, but can also require institutional knowledge and the ability to negotiate to avoid political crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With Mattarella remaining in office, the current government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi is expected to finish its mandate, which expires next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The president called for unity on Thursday, stating Italian citizens would have been &#8220;jeopardised by a prolonged state of political uncertainty and tensions.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mattarella &#8212; a former lawyer &#8212; was initially reluctant to accept a second term, but the divided parties in Draghi&#8217;s coalition government were unable to agree on a common alternative presidential candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 80-year-old was an Italian MP for 25 years and served as a government minister on five occasions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the swearing-in ceremony in the parliament, an acrobatic flight team exhibited in a traditional aerial parade as the president and Prime Minister Mario Draghi were being driven from the lower house to the Quirinale presidential palace. &#8212; NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sergio Mattarella delivers his speech at the Quirinale presidential palace in Rome ROME, Feb 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; Italian President Sergio Mattarella has been sworn into office to serve a second seven-year term. The 80-year-old agreed to remain as head of state after Italian political parties failed to agree on a successor. Mattarella received 55 rounds [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":162550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162549"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/162550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}