Mattarella easily elected Italian president

ROME- Sergio Mattarella was easily elected as Italian President Saturday, ending a period of political uncertainty on the recession-ravaged peninsula.

  Mattarella, aged 73, received as many as 665 votes in the fourth ballot for head of state, the first one that required only a simple majority of half the votes but he fell barely short of the 673 votes or two thirds majority required in the first three votes held Thursday and Friday.

  The 'Grand Electors' who voted for the new president, members of both houses of parliament and regional government representatives, gave him a standing ovation of four minutes in which parties from across the spectrum joined except for the opposition radical M5S.

 The smooth outcome of the byzantine vote was a significant victory for Premier Matteo Renzi, who gambled on the candidature of Mattarella, a man of the left and constitutional judge who was opposed by right-wing media mogul Silvio Berlusconi.

  Outgoing head of state Giorgio Napolitano, who stood down this month after seven years as president officially because he had reached age 89, praised the choice of his successor, saying it represented "a boost in the quality of politics" in Italy.

  Sicilian-born Mattarella, an avuncular if somewhat cadaverous figure with his white-died, bouffant hairstyle, is widely respected for his honesty and previously served as a deputy prime minister as well as being seen as symbolising the fight against organised crime since his brother, the head of the Sicilian regional parliament, was gunned down by the Cosa Nostra.