Italian Lawmakers, After Stalemate, Re-elect President to Second Term

The move raised the possibility that Mr. Napolitano, 87, could preside over the creation of a broad-based coalition after national elections in February split Parliament into three intractable factions and failed to yield a government even as Italy’s economy, the third-largest in the euro zone, continued to stumble.

The election of Mr. Napolitano, supported by both the main center-left and center-right parties, suggested that the two sides would now be more willing to negotiate the formation of a government. But it also infuriated the anti-establishment Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo, which won a quarter of the recent parliamentary vote.

While he cannot prevent a grand coalition, one including both major parties, from forming, Mr. Grillo could complicate matters by stirring renewed anger against the old political establishment, which is in upheaval.

After Mr. Grillo called on his supporters to take to the streets, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Parliament building, many holding placards in support of Five Star’s candidate, Stefano Rodotà, a legal expert and former leader of the center-left, which nonetheless did not back him. Mr. Rodotà is “not part of the old guard,” said one protester, Anna Maria Vatrella, an unemployed social worker. “All the left knows how to do is to hold on to the power they have. They have no interest in change. They have no idea what it means to live as normal people do.”

Mr. Napolitano’s current seven-year term is up in May. Lawmakers on Saturday implored him to run for president after failing to agree on a candidate acceptable to a majority of Parliament in two days of voting, and after the implosion on Friday of the center-left Democratic Party.

“I cannot dismiss my responsibility toward the nation,” Mr. Napolitano said before the vote, which made him the first second-term president in Italy’s 67-year-old republic. He added that he expected the political parties that had called on him to show “a corresponding sense of responsibility.”

“We must look at the difficult situation of the country, the problems of Italy and Italians and the image and the institutional role of this country in the world,” he said in a televised statement after the vote and a meeting with the presidents of the lower house and the Senate.

Although a testament to the respect he commands among all parties, Mr. Napolitano’s re-election was a controversial solution that underscored the profound difficulties that Italy’s established parties face in adapting to new economic and social realities.

It was “not a sign of health of the Italian political system, even if the effect could be positive,” said Antonio Polito, a political commentator. “Our system is no longer able to produce a stable government. The parliamentary system is broken, and it has not been able to fix itself.”

Mr. Napolitano said in his statement that a possible government had not been discussed, but political analysts said a grand coalition was likely. Such a government is most likely to exist as long as it takes to push through urgent economic measures and some critical reforms, including a new electoral law.

If the currently antagonistic parties do not come together, Mr. Napolitano could also dissolve Parliament and call a vote, though analysts said that was less likely because new elections would probably produce a similar result unless the electoral law was changed.

In November 2011, Mr. Napolitano helped orchestrate the rise to power of the current caretaker prime minister, Mario Monti, after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi stepped down during a period of intense market turmoil. Mr. Monti’s yearlong technocratic government ended in December when Mr. Berlusconi’s party withdrew support.

In the February elections, the Democratic Party won a majority in the lower house but not in the Senate, and its leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, rejected Mr. Berlusconi’s proposal for a grand coalition.

Elisabetta Povoledo reported from Rome, and Rachel Donadio from Athens.