One might be accused of age-ism by criticising the appointment of an 87 year old as the president of Italy, but when one reads the commentary in The Wall Street Journal one can only conclude that whole thing is really nothing but a farce.
"In the past week, Italy's parliament tried and failed to elect as President both an old union boss and a former prime minister. Pier Luigi Bersani, the head of the center-left party that supposedly won February's election, stepped down, having proved incapable of forming a government. In the end the Parliament re-elected Giorgio Napolitano, the 87-year-old incumbent president, despite his professing not to want the job and being actuarially hard pressed to fulfill a second seven-year mandate. As the failures pile up, they create the impression that Italy's political system, often comical, is irretrievably broken.
Mr. Napolitano, the first two-term President in Italy's history, now expects to oversee the formation of another unelected government supported by the major parties of right and left. The previous such government, run by economics professor and former European Commissioner Mario Monti, failed to pass a number of necessary reforms because it lacked a democratic mandate. And when Mr. Monti did put himself before voters in the recent elections, his party achieved just 10% of the vote."
"In the past week, Italy's parliament tried and failed to elect as President both an old union boss and a former prime minister. Pier Luigi Bersani, the head of the center-left party that supposedly won February's election, stepped down, having proved incapable of forming a government. In the end the Parliament re-elected Giorgio Napolitano, the 87-year-old incumbent president, despite his professing not to want the job and being actuarially hard pressed to fulfill a second seven-year mandate. As the failures pile up, they create the impression that Italy's political system, often comical, is irretrievably broken.
Mr. Napolitano, the first two-term President in Italy's history, now expects to oversee the formation of another unelected government supported by the major parties of right and left. The previous such government, run by economics professor and former European Commissioner Mario Monti, failed to pass a number of necessary reforms because it lacked a democratic mandate. And when Mr. Monti did put himself before voters in the recent elections, his party achieved just 10% of the vote."
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