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Electing the 80-year-old ended weeks of hand-wringing over whether prized Prime Minister Mario Draghi should be elevated, with many fearing such a move would have left the government rudderless at a highly sensitive time.

Italy's parties Saturday voted overwhelmingly for outgoing President Sergio Mattarella to remain for another term, averting the political chaos a failure to elect his successor could have sparked in the eurozone's third-largest economy.

Electing the 80-year-old ended weeks of hand-wringing over whether prized Prime Minister Mario Draghi should be elevated, with many fearing such a move would have left the government rudderless at a highly sensitive time.

Mattarella needed to pocket 505 or more votes. He won 759, earning him another stint as president in spite of himself.