Gianni Letta

Gianni Letta

Gianni Letta (born April 15, 1935 in Avezzano , province of L'Aquila ) is an Italian politician of Forza Italia (from 2008 Popolo della Libertà ), lawyer and journalist. In all of Silvio Berlusconi's governments , he was the senior secretary of the Italian Council of Ministers at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (May 1994 - January 1995, June 2001 - May 2006, May 2008 - November 2011 ).

Political career

After studying law , Letta devoted himself to journalism after a few years as a lawyer and worked for several daily newspapers, for RAI and ANSA as a correspondent in the Abruzzo regional capital, L'Aquila .

From 1958 he was editor of the Roman daily newspaper Il Tempo , whose management he took over from 1973 to 1987. Then he was hired as a manager and publicist for Berlusconi's media holding company Fininvest , where he was primarily responsible for the political and cultural programming of the television channel Canale 5 .

After the election victory of the center-right alliance Polo delle Libertà , Berlusconi brought him to his official residence, Palazzo Chigi, in May 1994 as State Secretary and most important coordinator of government work . Even after the overthrow of the first Berlusconi government, he remained at the side of the media entrepreneur and, especially from 1997 , played a key role in the Bicamerale , the parliamentary commission for constitutional reforms. A decisive influence is attributed to him in the formation of the center-right alliance as Casa delle Libertà towards the end of the 1990s.

From 2001 to 2006 and in May 2008, after Berlusconi's election victories, he returned to the post of State Secretary and Chief Coordinator of the Italian government. When the government camp narrowly lost the parliamentary elections in 2006 , Berlusconi proposed him in the election of the new president in May 2006 as the successor to Carlo Azeglio Ciampi . After four ballots, however, he was defeated by Giorgio Napolitano , the candidate of the center-left coalition. He achieved the best result in the first ballot (369 of 673 required votes).

Trivia

Gianni Letta plays himself in a supporting role in Alberto Sordi's film Io so che tu sai che io so (1982).

His nephew Enrico Letta , who belongs to the opposing center-left camp, took over his post as State Secretary at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in May 2006, when Romano Prodi formed the government: he was Italian Prime Minister from April 2013 to February 2014 .

Web links

• Brief portrait of Berlusconi's mediator as deputy . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 16, 2008