The former Bank of Italy governor Mr Carlo Azeglio Ciampi has been elected President of Italy in a parliamentary election in which his candidacy was endorsed both by the centre-left government and the centre-right opposition.
Mr Ciampi (78), who becomes Italy's 10th State President, had an emphatic triumph. He secured 707 of the 990 votes, 33 votes more than the two-thirds majority needed in the first round.
Mr Ciampi emerged as the almost certain winner late on Wednesday night following a hectic day of power-broking. His election represents a major triumph for the Prime Minister, Mr Massimo D'Alema, who intervened personally in the process on Wednesday.
He first persuaded his centre-left allies that Mr Ciampi was the candidate likely to draw the widest support, and then met the centre-right opposition leader, Mr Silvio Berlusconi, to seek his support. In the context of an Italy deeply concerned about the Balkan war taking place on its doorstep, many politicians expressed the hope that this election would not follow the well-established pattern of interminable party bickering as rival parties and factions proposed their own candidates. In the end, a spirit of national reconciliation prevailed.
Mr Ciampi was Treasury Minister in the current D'Alema government, and held that position when the President of the European Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, was Prime Minister. He had been seconded into politics from the Bank of Italy to handle a caretaker government between 1993 and 1994.
Widely respected in international banking circles, Mr Ciampi, along with Mr Prodi, was the mastermind behind restructuring Italian public finances, enabling Italy both to qualify for the start-up of the euro and to win badly needed market place credibility.