Mattarella - Steinmeier: l'elezione del Presidente e il sistema dei partiti in Italia e Germania

The recent elections of the Head of State in Italy and Germany of ered the opportunity to compare two similar political andif erent decision-making capacity of the party system in the two orders, which in turn is caused by a dif erent regulation of the parties themselves. The crisis in parliamentary decision-making seen in Italy could therefore be overcome not by further disempowering the parties, e.g. by introducing direct election of the head of state, but precisely by rationalising the role and organisation of the political parties by means of appropriate legislation, taking the German system as a mode d institutional events in systems characterised by many common features. The great political and institutional dif iculty with which Italy managed to re-elect Sergio Mattarella as President of the Republic contrasts with the simplicity with which Germany saw the confirmation of Frank-Walter Steinmeier as Head of State. The article argues that the main dif erence in the two cases stems from the