President of Italy: Most meaningless leadership spot in politics?

[RBH]

Fact: All Italian Presidents are really old.

The minimum age for the Italian Presidency is 50.

Giorgio Napolitano was elected at 80
Carlos Ciampi was elected at 78
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro was elected at 74
Francesco Cossiga was elected at 56
Sandro Pertini was elected at 81
Giovanni Leone was elected at 62
Giuseppe Saragat was elected at 65
Antonio Segni was elected at 71
Giovanni Gronchi was elected at 68
Luigi Einaudi was elected at 66
Enrico De Nicola was elected at 70 (starting the tradition)

So yeah, If America had Italy's Presidency, then the President would probably be Bob Dole, and Prime Minister Bush would be trying to keep things stable in his government.

[Keystone Phil]

Yeah, this always bothered me. The only time I'd see Ciampi in the news was when he was delivering flowers to someone.

[minionofmidas]

Actually, Italian presidents are a good bit more powerful than German or Israeli or Austrian ones. Even, in practice, Greek ones - although the constitutional position of the Greek president is closer to the French or Finnish president's.

The most meaningless leadership spot in politics is certainly that of President of Switzerland, a honorary title given to one of the seven members of the cabinet for a year that gives them exactly no additional powers.