President of Italy

The President of the Italian Republic (Italian: Presidente della Repubblica Italiana) is the head of state of Italy and, in that role, represents national unity and guarantees that Italian politics comply with the Constitution. The president's term of office lasts for seven years. The 11th President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, was elected on 10 May 2006, and elected to a second term for the first time in Italian Republic history, on 20 April 2013. On 31 January 2015, the incumbent President, former Constitutional judge Sergio Mattarella, was elected at the fourth ballot with 665 votes out of 1,009.

Qualifications for office

The framers of the Constitution of Italy intended for the President to be an elder statesman of some stature. Article 84 states that any citizen who is fifty or older on election day and enjoys civil and political rights can be elected President.

Those citizens who already hold any other office are barred from becoming President, unless they resign their previous office once they are elected.