News Analysis: More solid gov't, new reform challenge come out of Italian president election

Italy on Saturday elected a new head of State, Sergio Mattarella, a Constitutional Court judge with a reputation for integrity, the sole candidate advanced by the ruling party of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

Mattarella was named at the fourth round of voting by Italian parliament in joint session composed of 1,009 lawmakers and regional representatives. He won 665 votes, well above the simple majority of 505 required after the third round.

"It was a success of Renzi's courageous, brilliant line. His government ends up very strengthened by Mattarella's election," Sebastiano Messina, a political commentator at Rome-based la Repubblica national newspaper and author, told Xinhua.

The winning candidacy, promoted by Renzi and his center-left Democratic Party (PD) following days of frantic consultations, was backed by junior coalition partner New Center-Right (NCD) and minor leftist and centrist forces.

Mattarella was not voted by center-right Forza Italia (FI) of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), two major opposition formations in parliament.

"Berlusconi lacked the political wisdom of endorsing Mattarella," Messina went on saying. "Thus, he found himself marginalized, along with M5S lawmakers, in suffering the unanimous election of the PD candidate," he highlighted.

The new breach between Renzi and Berlusconi, however, could bring trouble to the ambitious path of reforms started by Renzi and to his plan to bring the government to natural end in 2018.

The two leaders had struck a key deal on institutional reforms in early 2014, including a much-awaited voting law intended to ensure stronger majorities in parliament, which is going through difficult approval process.

"My impression is that Renzi may call for early elections as soon as the new voting law is enacted, that is to say by the autumn of next year," Messina told Xinhua.

However that may be, looking at future scenarios Messina was confident that Mattarella will prove to be "a man of honor, a neutral president who has always shown great wisdom, prudence and composure in his political life."

In fact it was for his sobriety combined with "extensive political experience able to confront with Italy's complexities" that Mattarella became the shared choice, Massimo Siclari, a Constitutional law professor at the Roma Tre University in Rome, told Xinhua.

Mattarella, 73, a former professor of parliamentary law, entered politics as Christian Democrat in the 1980s, after his brother was killed by the Sicilian mafia, and served as minister in several governments.

Siclari described him as an unusually restrained politician, with only few press appearances to the point that media had some difficulties in finding updated pictures of him before the election.

"Because of the weakness of political parties in recent decades, Italian presidents (who traditionally play a mainly ceremonial role) have increasingly become a reference point for governments," noted Siclari, who is also author of a book on Italian heads of State.

But though his profile is in continuity with past presidents, Mattarella was outside active politics for years and may use the instrument of moral suasion less than his predecessors, also given the "dynamism" of the Renzi government, Siclari added.

In his view, Italy's 12th presidency - which will officially kick off when Mattarella is sworn in on Tuesday - will be marked by a "moderate, but also steadfast style" in guaranteeing the fundamental constitutional foundation of the country's legal system. Endit