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Giorgio NapolitanoPresident of Italy since May 2006
Date of Birth: 25.06.1925
Country:  Italy |
Content:
Biography of Giorgio Napolitano
Giorgio Napolitano, born on June 25, 1925, in Naples, Italy, served as the President of Italy from May 2006. He was the first representative of the former Italian Communist Party (ICP) to be elected to the highest state position, which had a significant influence on society in the post-war period. Napolitano, an 80-year-old senator for life and former communist, was nominated for the highest state position by the coalition led by Romano Prodi, which won the parliamentary elections in April, according to ITAR-TASS.
Political Career
Napolitano's candidacy for the presidency of Italy was supported by 542 out of 1010 members of the electoral college, which consists of deputies, senators, and representatives of regional authorities. The representatives of the opposition right-center coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi placed blank ballots in the voting urn. The term of the current president, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, expires on May 18, but it is expected that he will resign earlier to expedite the inauguration of the new head of state. Giorgio Napolitano is expected to take the presidential oath before May 15. Until the new president assumes office, the duties of the head of state will be carried out by the Senate Chairman, Franco Marini.
As the leader of the winning coalition in the Italian elections, Romano Prodi stated that Giorgio Napolitano could appoint him as the Prime Minister by the following Tuesday. Throughout his long political career, Giorgio Napolitano was one of the leaders of the Italian Communist Party, and he also served as the President of the Chamber of Deputies, according to Interfax.
In the first three rounds of the presidential elections in Italy, which took place in parliament on Monday and Tuesday, the opposing coalitions failed to reach a compromise on the candidate for the head of state. The day before the vote, the Romano Prodi coalition withdrew the candidacy of the former Prime Minister, Massimo D'Alema, the leader of the "Left Democrats" party, as it did not satisfy the right-wing. As a compromise candidate, the left proposed another former communist, 80-year-old senator for life, Giorgio Napolitano.
However, Silvio Berlusconi rejected the proposed option, stating that a former communist should not be the President of Italy in principle. The two parties belonging to the right-wing coalition - the National Alliance (former neo-fascists) and the Union of Christian Democrats and the Center - spoke positively about Napolitano's candidacy but did not disobey Berlusconi's instructions: in the third round, the majority of electors from both blocs cast blank ballots. In the fourth round, a simple majority of 505 votes was sufficient for the election of the president on Wednesday.
Early Life and Political Involvement
Giorgio Napolitano was born on June 25, 1925, in Naples, Italy. At the age of 17, in 1942, he joined an illegal communist organization of students at the University of Naples and participated in the underground anti-fascist struggle. Napolitano received an economics education at the university.
He joined the Italian Communist Party in 1945 and served as the secretary of the party federations in Naples and Caserta. In 1953, he was elected as a member of parliament for the first time. As a member of the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party since 1956, he was part of the party's leadership and was responsible for economic policy and the development of Southern Italy.
Giorgio Napolitano was one of the leaders of the reformist wing of the Italian Communist Party, advocating a commitment to the values of European social democracy. At the party congress in Rimini in 1991, he supported the decision to abandon communist ideology and became one of the leaders of the Democratic Party of the Left (now known as "Left Democrats"), formed based on the Italian Communist Party.
From 1992 to 1994, Napolitano served as the President of the Chamber of Deputies in the national parliament. From 1996 to 1998, during Romano Prodi's left-centrist government, he held the position of Minister of the Interior. In 1989-1992 and 2000-2004, he was a member of the European Parliament. In September 2005, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi appointed Napolitano as a senator for life of the Italian Republic, acknowledging his services to the state.
Napolitano is married and has two sons - Giulio, a professor at the University of Tuscia in Viterbo, and Giovanni, an employee of the state media watchdog. In his youth, Giorgio Napolitano had a passion for the performing arts and worked as an actor in one of the Neapolitan theaters. Additionally, he published a collection of sonnets in the Neapolitan dialect under the pseudonym Tommaso Pignatelli, which received favorable reviews from critics.
