ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s parliament failed to elect a new state president in the first two votes on Thursday with a centre-left rebellion against leader Pier Luigi Bersani torpedoing his official candidate and prolonging a political stalemate.

Until the new president is elected, the paralysis hobbling attempts to form a government since February’s inconclusive general election will continue, and a chaotic day of voting showed how fractured the political landscape remains.

ROME, April 18 (Reuters) – Italy’s parliament failed to
elect a new state president in its first vote on Thursday, with
divisions in the centre-left alliance torpoedoing a quick
victory for its official candidate Franco Marini.

Marini, a former Senate speaker, won just over 520 votes,
well below the required two thirds majority or 672 of the 1007
members of both houses of parliament and regional
representatives in the presidential poll.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s political crisis, already a month old, could drag on for at least several more weeks and is now inextricably tied up with the vote for a successor to President Giorgio Napolitano, the man in charge of finding a solution.

An election on Feb 24-25 pushed Italy into limbo with a huge protest vote for the populist 5-Star Movement splitting parliament three ways, wrecking the established bipolar system and leaving no group with enough support to rule alone.

ROME, April 2 (Reuters) – Italian President Giorgio
Napolitano expressed despair on Tuesday at fierce criticism of
his latest plan to end a post-election deadlock that has raised
fears of months of instability in the euro zone’s third largest
economy.

Two groups of “wise men” appointed by Napolitano to try to
forge a policy compromise between squabbling parties to end the
impasse since the Feb. 24-25 election started work on Tuesday.
Napolitano said they would report back in 8-10 days.

ROME (Reuters) – Italian President Giorgio Napolitano expressed despair on Tuesday at fierce criticism of his latest plan to end a post-election deadlock that has raised fears of months of instability in the euro zone’s third largest economy.

Two groups of “wise men” appointed by Napolitano to try to forge a policy compromise between squabbling parties to end the impasse since the February 24-25 election started work on Tuesday. Napolitano said they would report back in 8-10 days.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy remained in political deadlock on Friday after a new round of talks led by President Giorgio Napolitano failed to break the stalemate created by elections last month that left no group able to form a government alone.

Napolitano, 87, conducted a swift round of talks with the three main forces in parliament on Friday after the failure of a week of efforts by center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani to win support for a new government.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy remained in political deadlock on Friday after a new round of talks led by President Giorgio Napolitano failed to break the stalemate created by elections last month that left no group able to form a government alone.

Napolitano, 87, conducted a swift round of talks with the three main forces in parliament on Friday after the failure of a week of efforts by center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani to win support for a new government.

ROME (Reuters) – Center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani has failed in his attempt to find a way out of Italy’s intractable political crisis and President Giorgio Napolitano will now try to find another solution, the president’s palace said on Thursday.

Bersani reported back to Napolitano on Thursday night after being given a mandate almost a week ago to see if there was a way to form a government after an inconclusive election in February which plunged Italy into deadlock.

ROME (Reuters) – The decision to order a retrial of American Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of her British housemate has put the spotlight back on Italy’s courts, where years of legal process often fail to uncover the truth.

Knox and the family of murdered British student Meredith Kercher said they hoped the case would finally be solved after Italy’s highest court on Tuesday ordered a retrial for the 2007 murder in the Umbrian hill town of Perugia.

ROME (Reuters) – The chaos and uncertainty following Italy’s parliamentary election last month is compounded by the imminent retirement of the one man who has any chance of solving the crisis, President Giorgio Napolitano.

A wave of support for the populist 5-Star Movement produced an electoral earthquake in the Feb 24-25 poll, shaking the traditional political system to its foundations and creating an enormous headache for the head of state, who combines figurehead functions with the key power of appointing governments.