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Giorgio Napolitano

Giorgio Napolitano
Official portrait, 2006
President of Italy
In office
15 May 2006 – 14 January 2015
Prime Minister
Preceded byCarlo Azeglio Ciampi
Succeeded bySergio Mattarella
President of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
3 June 1992 – 14 April 1994
Preceded byOscar Luigi Scalfaro
Succeeded byIrene Pivetti
Minister of the Interior
In office
18 May 1996 – 21 October 1998
Prime MinisterRomano Prodi
Preceded byGiovanni Rinaldo Coronas
Succeeded byRosa Russo Iervolino
Parliamentary offices
Member of the Senate of the Republic
Ex officio
Life tenure
14 January 2015 – 22 September 2023
Life tenure
23 September 2005 – 15 May 2006
Appointed byCarlo Azeglio Ciampi
Member of the European Parliament
In office
20 July 1999 – 19 July 2004
ConstituencySouthern Italy
In office
25 July 1989 – 10 June 1992
ConstituencySouthern Italy
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
5 June 1968 – 8 May 1996
ConstituencyNaples
In office
25 June 1953 – 15 May 1963
ConstituencyNaples
Personal details
Born(1925-06-29)29 June 1925
Naples, Kingdom of Italy
Died22 September 2023(2023-09-22) (aged 98)
Rome, Italy
Resting placeCimitero Acattolico, Rome, Italy
Political partyIndependent
Other political
affiliations
  • PCI (1945–1991)
  • PDS (1991–1998)
  • DS (1998–2006)
Spouse
​
(m. 1959)​
Children2
Alma materUniversity of Naples Federico II
Signature

Giorgio Napolitano (Italian: [ˈdʒordʒo napoliˈtaːno]; 29 June 1925 – 22 September 2023) was an Italian politician who served as President of Italy from 2006 to 2015, the first to be re-elected to the office.[1][2] In office for 8 years and 244 days, he was the longest-serving president, until the record was surpassed by Sergio Mattarella in 2023. He also was the longest-lived president in the history of the Italian Republic,[3] which has been in existence since 1946. Although he was a prominent figure of the First Italian Republic, he did not take part in the Constituent Assembly of Italy that drafted the Italian constitution;[3] he is considered one of the symbols of the Second Italian Republic, which came about after the Tangentopoli scandal of the 1990s.[3] Due to his dominant position in Italian politics, some critics have sometimes referred to him as Re Giorgio ("King Giorgio").[4]

Napolitano was a longtime member of the Italian Communist Party, which he joined in 1945 after taking part in the Italian resistance movement, and of its post-Communist democratic socialist and social democratic successors, from the Democratic Party of the Left to the Democrats of the Left. He was a leading member of migliorismo, a reformist, moderate, and modernizing faction on the right-wing of the PCI,[5][6][7] which was inspired by the values of democratic socialism,[8] looked favourably to social democracy, and was interested in revisionist Marxism.[9] First elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1953, he took an assiduous interest in parliamentary life and was president of the Chamber of Deputies from 1992 to 1994. He was Minister of the Interior from 1996 to 1998 during the first Prodi government.[10] A close friend of Henry Kissinger,[11] he was also the first high-ranking leader of a communist party to visit the United States, which he did in 1978.[10]

In 2005, Napolitano was appointed a senator for life in Italy by then president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.[12] In the May 2006 Italian presidential election, he was elected by the Italian Parliament as president of Italy. A pro-Europeanist,[13] Napolitano was the first former Communist to hold said office.[12] During his first term in office, he oversaw governments both of the centre-left coalition, such as the second Prodi government, and the centre-right coalition, such as the fourth Berlusconi government.[14] In November 2011, Silvio Berlusconi resigned as prime minister of Italy amid financial and economic problems. In keeping with his constitutional role, Napolitano then asked former European commissioner Mario Monti to form a cabinet,[15] which critics referred to as a "government of the president".[16]

Napolitano intended to retire from politics after his seven-year presidential term expired, but reluctantly agreed to run again in the 2013 presidential election to safeguard the continuity of the country's institutions during the parliamentary deadlock that followed the February 2013 Italian general election. He was the first sitting president to run for a second term.[17] On being re-elected as president with broad cross-party support in Parliament, he overcame the impasse by inviting Enrico Letta to propose a grand coalition government.[18] When Letta handed in his resignation in February 2014, Napolitano mandated Matteo Renzi (Letta's factional challenger) to form a new government.[19] After a record eight and a half years as president, citing age factors, the 89-year-old Napolitano resigned in January 2015. He had already stated that he did not intend to serve out a full second term.[20] He then resumed his Italian Senate seat,[21][22] which he held until his death in 2023.[23]

Napolitano was often accused by his critics of having transformed a largely ceremonial role into a political and executive one, acting as kingmaker during his political tenure.[24][25] Supporters instead credited him with saving Italy from the brink of default during the European debt crisis and subsequent political stalemates,[26] which helped to stabilize the country.[27] At the time of his death in 2023, he was the longest-serving Italian President as well as the longest-lived Italian President on record.[3] He was also the oldest head of state in Europe and the third oldest in the world, behind the Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.[28] A state funeral in secular form was held for Napolitano on 22 September 2023.

  1. ^ Cook, Bernard A. (25 May 2019). Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780815340584 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ "Addio a Giorgio Napolitano, fu il primo comunista a diventare Capo dello Stato e il primo a essere rieletto". La Stampa (in Italian). 22 September 2023. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d Bincher, Fosca (22 September 2023). "Tutti i numeri da record di Giorgio Napolitano. Ma nel Palazzo più longevi di lui Andreotti e Scalfaro". Open (in Italian). Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  4. ^ Donadio, Rachel (2 December 2011). "From Ceremonial Figure to Italy's Quiet Power Broker". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  5. ^ "Napolitano: 'Io e il Pci di Berlinguer, quel sogno riformista oggi parli a tutta la società'". la Repubblica (in Italian). 30 October 2015. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  6. ^ "Napolitano e la corrente dei "miglioristi"". Il Post (in Italian). 22 September 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  7. ^ "Napolitano e Torino, un legame solido: dagli anni del migliorismo ai 150 anni dell'Unità d'Italia". La Stampa (in Italian). 22 September 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  8. ^ "Giorgio Napolitano". Archivio Quirinale (in Italian). 2015. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  9. ^ "Il suo amore per il Sud e le radici". Il Mattino (in Italian). 23 September 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  10. ^ a b Scherer, Steve (22 September 2023). "OBITUARY Napolitano, president who helped save Italy from possible default, dies at 98". Reuters. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  11. ^ "Kissinger's " favorite communist ": Giorgio Napolitano and the relationship with the USA". Il Giornale (in Italian). 22 September 2023.
  12. ^ a b "Giorgio Napolitano, former Italian president and first ex-Communist in that post, has died at 98". AP News. 22 September 2023. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  13. ^ Vecchio, Concetto (22 September 2023). "Giorgio Napolitano è morto: se ne va il primo presidente della Repubblica eletto due volte". la Repubblica (in Italian). Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  14. ^ "Morte Giorgio Napolitano, Presidente con 5 premier in 9 anni". Adnkronos (in Italian). 22 September 2023. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
  15. ^ "Italian politics bids farewell to President Napolitano". The Independent. 13 January 2015. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
  16. ^ Mauro, Ezio (14 November 2011). "Il governo del presidente". La Repubblica. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  17. ^ Mackenzie, James (20 April 2013). "Giorgio Napolitano, Italy's reluctant president". Reuters.
  18. ^ "Italian 'grand coalition' sworn in". BBC News. 28 April 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
  19. ^ "Matteo Renzi unveils a new Italian government with familiar problems". The Guardian. 22 February 2014. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
  20. ^ "Italian President Napolitano announces retirement". BBC. 14 January 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  21. ^ "Napolitano si è dimesso: gli onori e il commiato, finisce così la presidenza più lunga". la Repubblica (in Italian). 14 January 2015. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  22. ^ "Addio a Napolitano, presidente due volte: segnò la storia della Repubblica. Camera ardente al Senato". Tiscali Notizie (in Italian). 22 September 2023. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  23. ^ "Morte Giorgio Napolitano, una vita per immagini: dal Pci al Quirinale". la Repubblica (in Italian). 21 September 2023. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  24. ^ "Grillo: 'Napolitano monarca medievale' Montecitorio: ecco le 'controconsultazioni'". Corriere della Sera. 15 February 2014.
  25. ^ Argano, Fabrizia (11 September 2013). "Napolitano, il monarca indispensabile". Formiche.net.
  26. ^ "Former Italian president Napolitano dies aged 98". Reuters. 22 September 2023. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  27. ^ McFadden, Robert D. (22 September 2023). "Giorgio Napolitano, Italian Post-Communist Pillar, Dies at 98". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
  28. ^ Martelli, Silvia (22 September 2023). "Giorgio Napolitano, former Italian president, dies at age 98". Il Sole 24 Ore. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
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