[6] As of 2024, five prime ministers have served under his presidency, among them Matteo Renzi, then the PD's leader and main sponsor of his presidential candidacy,[7] Paolo Gentiloni, a leading member of the PD who succeeded Renzi after his resignation in 2016,[8] Giuseppe Conte, at that time an independent politician who governed both with right-wing and left-wing coalitions in two consecutive cabinets,[9] Mario Draghi, a banker and former president of the European Central Bank, who was appointed by Mattarella to lead a national unity government following Conte's resignation,[10] and Giorgia Meloni, Italy's first ever female prime minister and leader of the right-wing coalition which won the general election in September 2022.

[11] During his long-time tenure, Italy faced the aftermath of the Great Recession, as well as the severe European migrant crisis, which deeply marked Italian political, economic and social life, bringing to the rise of populist parties.

[34] One of the first important positions that Mattarella held was the head of the board of arbitrators of the DC, quickly reconstituted at the end of 1981 following the Propaganda Due scandal and the establishment of the related parliamentary commission of inquiry, chaired by Tina Anselmi.

[56] He soon found himself engaged in an internal dispute after the election of new party leader Rocco Buttiglione, who wished to steer the PPI towards an electoral alliance with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI).

"[58] In 1995, at the height of the internal conflict within the PPI, he addressed Buttiglione, who was stubbornly seeking an alliance with the political right, as "el general coup leader Roquito Butillone" and defined "an irrational nightmare" the hypothesis that Berlusconi's FI could be accepted into the European People's Party.

As Minister of Defence, he supported the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia against the Serbian president Slobodan Milošević; he also approved a reform of the Italian Armed Forces which abolished conscription.

Mattarella was re-elected to the Italian Parliament in the 2001 and 2006 general elections, standing as a candidate for The Daisy in two successive centre-left coalitions: The Olive Tree and The Union (L'Unione).

[63][56] On 31 January 2015, Mattarella was elected the president of Italy at the fourth ballot with 665 votes out of 1,009, with support from the Democratic Party (PD), New Centre-Right, Civic Choice, Union of the Centre, and Left Ecology Freedom.

[73] On 6 May, he signed the new Italian electoral law, known as Italicum, which provides for a two-round system based on party-list proportional representation, corrected by a majority bonus and a 3% election threshold.

[85] According to many political analysts and commentators, the appointment of Gentiloni caused tensions between Mattarella and Renzi, who asked the president to dissolve the parliament and call for a snap election in 2017.

[88][89] After the election's results were known, Luigi Di Maio, leader of the M5S, and Matteo Salvini, secretary of the League, each urged that Mattarella should give him the task of forming a new cabinet because he led the largest party or coalition, respectively.

[92] On 14 March, Salvini offered to govern with the M5S, imposing the condition that League ally Forza Italia (FI), led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, must also take part in any coalition.

[95] On 18 April, Mattarella tasked the President of the Senate Elisabetta Casellati with trying to reconcile the issues between the centre-right coalition and the M5S in order to break the post-election political deadlock and form a fully functional new government;[96][97] however, she failed to find a solution to the conflicts between the two groups, especially between FI and the M5S.

[98][99] On 23 April, after Casellati's failure, Mattarella gave an exploratory mandate to the President of the Chamber of Deputies Roberto Fico to try to create a political agreement between the Democratic Party (PD) and the M5S.

[116][117][118] Despite reports in the Italian press suggesting that Mattarella still had significant reservations about the direction of the new government,[119] Conte was invited to the Quirinal Palace on 23 May to receive the presidential mandate to form a new cabinet.

[123] In his speech after Conte's resignation, Mattarella declared that the two parties wanted to bring Italy out of the eurozone and that, as the guarantor of the Italian constitution and the country's interest and stability, he could not allow this.

[129] HuffPost editor Lucia Annunziata dismissed Di Maio and Salvini as "liars",[130] while news magazine L'Espresso called them "subversive", and Le Monde praised Mattarella as an "intransigent guardian of the Constitution".

")[133] Marco Travaglio and Maurizio Belpietro (editors of Il Fatto Quotidiano and La Verità) criticized Mattarella's move as an abuse but recognized that it was not sufficient to start an impeachment procedure.

[138] Many political analysts believe the no-confidence motion was an attempt to force early elections to improve Lega's standing in the Italian Parliament, ensuring that Salvini would become the next prime minister.

[149] In January 2021, Matteo Renzi, former prime minister and leader of Italia Viva (IV), who split from the PD in 2019, revoked his party's support to the government of Conte, who did not resign immediately.

[156] After successful negotiations with parties including FI, the League, the M5S, and the PD, Draghi was sworn in as the prime minister on 13 February,[157] pledging to oversee effective implementation of COVID-19 economic stimulus.

[166] On the following day, the government extended the quarantine measures previously applied only in the so-called "red zones" to the whole country, putting de facto 60 million people in lockdown.

[184][185][186] In August 2021, the government extended the requirement of the EU Digital COVID Certificate, also known as Green Pass, to the participation in sports events and music festivals but also to the access to indoor places like bars, restaurants and gyms, as well as to long-distance public transportation, in an attempt to contain the spread of new variants.

[190] During 2021, despite high popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy,[191][192][193] President Mattarella refused to run for a second term despite various political forces asking him to do so, recalling similar remarks made by his predecessors Antonio Segni and Giovanni Leone.

He also commented on the Russo-Ukrainian crisis, stating: "We cannot accept that now, without even the pretext of competition between different political and economic systems, the winds of confrontation are once again blowing across a continent that has experienced the tragedies of the First and Second World Wars.

"[204] Mattarella added: "We must appeal to our resources and those of allied and friendly countries so that the displays of strength give way to mutual understanding so that no people should fear aggression from their neighbours.

[211] However, Mattarella rejected the resignation because the government had largely won the confidence vote in the Senate and invited the prime minister to address the Parliament, explaining the political situation.

[220] In a brief speech to the nation, Mattarella stated: "Pauses are not possible at the moment we are going through: energy costs have consequences for families and businesses, economic difficulties must be addressed, there are many obligations to be closed in the interest of Italy.

"[221] The 2022 general election, held on 25 September, was characterized by a strong showing of the centre-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI), which won an absolute majority of seats in the Italian Parliament.

[231] He also criticised the so-called Milleproroghe (English: Thousand extensions), a decree law promoted by the government aimed at resolving urgent provisions by the end of the current year and described by Mattarella as a "mere container of the most different regulatory interventions".