Rome (AFP)
The Italian President Sergio Mattarella, a man of principles very much on his prerogatives, returns Tuesday on the front of the scene as arbitrator of the political crisis born of the breakup of the government installed in power 14 months ago.
As soon as Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte resigns him on Tuesday night, he will begin consultations with political parties to assess whether a new, viable coalition of governments is on the horizon or whether new legislative elections are needed.
Mr Mattarella was elected at the beginning of 2015, by indirect universal suffrage, by a Parliament which was then left-center majority.
Heir to the Christian Democracy (DC), the Sicilian reserved 78 years last year refused to yield to what his entourage called "diktat" from the League (far right) and the Movement 5 Stars (M5S , antisystem), the two parties emerged victorious from the legislative elections of March 4, 2018.
He had indeed vetoed anti-system parties that initially wanted to impose a Minister of Economy and Finance anti-euro, Paolo Savona. Demonstration of his will to defend at all costs the presidential institution.
Son of a historical leader of the DC, Sergio Mattarella grew up between a prestigious Catholic high school in Rome and Catholic youth camps in Assisi, and was destined for a career as a law professor.
- Brother killed by the mafia -
But in January 1980, his older brother Piersanti, president of the Sicily region, died in his arms, murdered by the mafia. It is with the shirt stained with the blood of his brother that he thus makes his entrance into public life by receiving the condolences of the authorities of Palermo.
Three years later, this man known for his integrity, who flees the media - unlike his predecessors he observed a deafening silence, staying in Sardinia for a short vacation, facing the crisis triggered by Salvini on August 8 - is elected MP under the banner of the DC.
"Mattarella represents Sicily own, the one who paid a high price" to free it from organized crime, said of him the former president of this region, Rosario Crocetta.
For former head of the center-left government Matteo Renzi, his election as president has been "a gesture of closeness, affection, respect" from the world of politics to all those who have lost a husband, a father , a brother in "the barbarity of the 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s".
Man of principles, Sergio Mattarella is also one of the few Christian Democrats to have resigned.
The episode dates back to 1990, when he renounced his post as Minister of Education Giulio Andreotti to protest against the adoption of a law confirming to Silvio Berlusconi, not yet entered into politics, his near-monopoly on private television channels in Italy.
Having become a simple deputy, he had been charged with drafting a new electoral law, supposed to ensure greater political stability in Italy.
The "Mattarellum" law, mixing majority and proportional voting, did not really satisfy since it was replaced after 10 years by a new law.
If some Italians, especially the youngest, know a little about this man with blue eyes and white hair, it is mainly because the compulsory military service was removed in 2001, when he was Minister of Defense.
After this last visit to the government and 25 years in Parliament, he left politics in 2008. Three years later, he was elected judge of the Constitutional Court.
Widowed, he has three children and six grandchildren. He resided before his election in a modest office apartment close to the Quirinal, the presidential palace.
© 2019 AFP