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Giorgio Napolitano, Italian Post-Communist Pillar, Dies at 98 Giorgio Napolitano, Italian Post-Communist Pillar, Dies at 98
(4 days later)
Giorgio Napolitano, modern Italy’s longest-serving president, who orchestrated the transfer of power from a scandal-scarred Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to a little-known economist in a 2011 debt crisis and turned his nation back from the brink of collapse, died on Friday in Rome. He was 98.Giorgio Napolitano, modern Italy’s longest-serving president, who orchestrated the transfer of power from a scandal-scarred Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to a little-known economist in a 2011 debt crisis and turned his nation back from the brink of collapse, died on Friday in Rome. He was 98.
His death, in a clinic, was announced by Italy’s current president, Sergio Mattarella, who said in a statement that Mr. Napolitano’s “life mirrors a large part of the history in the second half of the 1900s, with its dramas, its complexity, its goals and hopes.”His death, in a clinic, was announced by Italy’s current president, Sergio Mattarella, who said in a statement that Mr. Napolitano’s “life mirrors a large part of the history in the second half of the 1900s, with its dramas, its complexity, its goals and hopes.”
After a half-century in public life, Mr. Napolitano was caught up in a strange paradox. A former high-ranking leader of Italy’s Communist Party, he was instrumental in saving Europe’s third-largest capitalist economy from ruin. And he did it without executive power, using only the authority of an institutional head of state and guarantor of the Constitution.After a half-century in public life, Mr. Napolitano was caught up in a strange paradox. A former high-ranking leader of Italy’s Communist Party, he was instrumental in saving Europe’s third-largest capitalist economy from ruin. And he did it without executive power, using only the authority of an institutional head of state and guarantor of the Constitution.
On the merry-go-round of Italian politics, where leaders and governments revolved with mind-boggling rapidity, Mr. Napolitano never reached for the golden ring of the prime minister’s office and never acquired the polish of premiers like Giulio Andreotti, Amintore Fanfani or Mr. Berlusconi, the flamboyant billionaire media magnate and womanizer who was convicted of tax fraud after his resignation. Mr. Berlusconi died at 86 in June.On the merry-go-round of Italian politics, where leaders and governments revolved with mind-boggling rapidity, Mr. Napolitano never reached for the golden ring of the prime minister’s office and never acquired the polish of premiers like Giulio Andreotti, Amintore Fanfani or Mr. Berlusconi, the flamboyant billionaire media magnate and womanizer who was convicted of tax fraud after his resignation. Mr. Berlusconi died at 86 in June.
Indeed, to ordinary Italians and to an international cognoscenti, Mr. Napolitano was quite the opposite of such men: a down-to-earth, straight-talking intellectual who had served 38 years in Parliament, written a dozen books, helped ease Italian communism into a social democratic movement, supported closer ties to the European Union and America, and was president of the republic for nearly nine years, from 2006 to 2015.
Under Italy’s postwar Constitution, the president is elected by Parliament for a seven-year term. While second terms are not barred by law, no president had ever been re-elected until Mr. Napolitano was, in 2013.