ROME, Dec.9 (Xinhua) -- Italian President Sergio Mattarella Friday continued consultations with political parties as he carried on with his task of sounding out all sides in the wake of prime minister's resignation.
Mattarella met with the leaders of 17 small parliamentary caucuses in the day.
Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi stepped down after being overwhelmingly defeated in a referendum on his constitutional reform law last Sunday.
Observers said the president might name Paolo Gentiloni, foreign minister under Renzi's cabinet, to head a new government, since Gentiloni was seen entering and leaving Renzi's office twice on Friday -- once in the morning and once in the afternoon.
The new prime minister may be tasked either with framing a new election law and leading Italy to an early vote in spring 2017, or to govern through the end of the legislative term in February 2018 in order to meet important international commitments.
Some parties want an interim government, while others are clamoring for snap elections on the premise that the Italian people have spoken loud and clear in the referendum, where 60 percent turned down the reform and the current government by implication.
The latter include the populist, euro-skeptic Five Star Movement (M5S), which is Italy's second-biggest party after Renzi's Democratic Party (PD), and the rightwing, anti-euro and anti-immigrant Northern League party.
Mattarella, however, has said a vote would be "inconceivable" without an electoral law that is consistent for both the Lower House and the Senate.
The current Italicum election law only applies to the Lower House, because the government was going to scrap the Senate -- a reform that was rejected by referendum voters last Sunday.
The Constitutional Court is set to rule on the Italicum on Jan. 24, and is widely expected to decide that many of its innovations run contrary to the Italian Charter.
The talks will continue from 11:00-18:00 Saturday as Mattarella meets with Italy's largest parties, the PD, comedian Beppe Grillo's M5S, and former center-right premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party.
