Countdown to the blank semester. The last six months of the term of office of the President of the Republic start from 3 August: as provided for by article 88 of the Constitution, Sergio Mattarella will no longer be able to dissolve the Chambers and call new elections. The attention shifts to the parties: the fear is that without the risk of the polls, the crossed vetoes could multiply and even lead to the attempt to give life to a new government. Not everyone agrees, however: having sheltered the reform of justice, a deeply divisive issue for the current majority, the broad support enjoyed by Mario Draghi and the mission of the Recovery plan should be sufficient to guarantee navigation, at least until moment in which the Chambers will meet to choose the new tenant at the Quirinale.
The election window could reopen after the election of the new President of the Republic, in February 2022, also because it is no mystery that Draghi himself is a strong candidate for the succession to Mattarella but there are those who bet that the reasons that they brought him to Palazzo Chigi will also be those who will advise him to remain at the helm of the government until the expiry of the legislature in 2023, with the election of another tenant at the Quirinale. There are also those who already hypothesize that the parties may ask Mattarella to give the willingness to be re-elected for a second term. But everything is still premature.
The white semester window was introduced during the work of the Constituent Assembly with the aim of preventing the Head of State from using the power of dissolution of Parliament to secure re-election. And despite some attempts to modify the Charter by introducing the prohibition of "bis", the law has resisted over time. However, this is a limitation that does not close all the room for maneuver available to the President of the Republic: if the tensions in the majority were exacerbated, Mattarella would in fact always have the "final" weapon of early resignation at his disposal, observes the deputy Pd and constitutionalist Stefano Ceccanti in an interview with Radio Radicale.
