Sergio Mattarella has had to put retirement on hold after accepting a second seven-year mandate as Italy's president, putting an end to a spiralling political crisis sparked by disagreement among the ruling parties over who should replace him.

During his term in office, the 80-year-old frequently said he did not want to be re-elected Italy's president, and had gone as far as packing his bags to move out of the Quirinale, the presidential palace.

However, after almost a week of chaos – and growing resentment between the political parties – around the election of a successor, a second mandate was seen as the only option to prevent the country's precarious stability from disintegrating.

"I had other plans, but if it's necessary, I'm available," said Mattarella before being re-elected on the eighth round of voting, swept back into the Quirinale after collecting 759 votes – far more than the 505 needed for a simple majority. 

It's not the first time that an Italian president unwilling to take a second mandate has ended up being re-elected for the sake of national stability. Giorgio Napolitano, now 96, was the first Italian president to be elected for a second mandate, at the age of 87 in 2013. 

On that occasion, Napolitano had preemptively agreed on covering the role only for the time necessary for the political class to pull itself together, but he ended up staying for a little more than two years.

As Mattarella is a constitutionalist, he is unlikely to agree on a temporary mandate that would go against the seven years stated by Italian law, though it's possible he won't serve the entire mandate.

Prime minister Mario Draghi had also put himself forward as a candidate for Italy's next president, but MPs didn't rally around his name for fears that the current ruling coalition wouldn't survive his election, and that this would trigger early general elections.

Draghi held a meeting with Mattarella just before the final round of voting, urging him to stay "for the good and stability of the country."

The prime minister said that Mattarella's re-election was "splendid news for Italians," and in fact it's possibly the only way the current government will be able to survive until the 2023 general elections and avoid the country precipitating into chaos.

But the process of re-electing the president showed that Italy's political class is as divided as it has ever been, with resentment running high between party leaders, among shifting alliances and mutual mistrust.

The re-election of Mattarella has been considered a success only for Enrico Letta, the leader of the center-left Democratic party who had been advocating for a second mandate of the exiting president as the only viable option since voting started on January 24.

Lega's Matteo Salvini and 5Star's Giuseppe Conte only endorsed Mattarella after nominating a few other candidates (including, for the first time, women) but failing to rally their parties behind the names proposed.