Pier Luigi Bersani
Pier Luigi Bersani (born September 29, 1951 in Bettola ) is an Italian politician and was chairman of the social democratic Partito Democratico (PD) from 2009 to 2013 . He was President of the Emilia-Romagna Region and Minister of Transport and Minister of Economics. Bersani was the top candidate for the center-left alliance in the 2013 parliamentary elections in Italy on February 24 and 25, which his party won, but resigned as chairman due to the unsuccessful government formation.
Life
Bersani comes from a family of craftsmen, his father was a car mechanic and gas station attendant. He completed a degree in philosophy at the University of Bologna and graduated with the distinction cum laude . He worked for a short time as a teacher and then devoted himself full-time to politics. Bersani likes to refer to his humble social background in political discussions.
Since 1980 he has been married to Daniela Ferrari, who works as a pharmacist and comes from his birthplace. He has two daughters with her.
Political career
Rise in Emilia-Romagna
In his youth he joined the Partito Comunista Italiano ( later left-wing democrats ). After his first experiences in local politics in the provincial council of Piacenza , he was elected to the regional parliament of Emilia-Romagna for the constituency of Piacenza . From 1990 to 1993 he was Vice President and from 1993 President of the region, which has been a stronghold of the left since the end of the war. When the regional presidents were elected directly in Italy for the first time in 1995, Bersani won the region for the democratic left with 54 percent of the vote. During his time as regional president, Bersani also interfered in national politics and was perceived for the first time as one of the hopes of the Italian left.
First offices in Rome
On May 18, 1996, Bersani was appointed by Romano Prodi as Minister of Industry in his first cabinet, to which he was a member until December 22, 1999. After the fall of Prodi, Bersani was Minister of Transport in the center-left governments of Massimo D'Alema and Giuliano Amato from December 23, 1999 to June 3, 2001 . In the 2001 parliamentary elections in which the center-left parties one of Silvio Berlusconi documents cited electoral alliance, Bersani was for the Left Democrats for the first time as MP for the constituency of Fidenza - Salsomaggiore Terme in the Chamber of Deputies elected.
In the same year, in order to strengthen the economic competence of the Italian left, he and Vincenzo Visco founded the Nuova Economia Nuova Società (NENS) association to set up a study center that deals with economic and social change.
In the European elections in June 2004, Bersani competed as the political draft horse of the Olive Tree Alliance in the constituency of northeast Italy. The olive tree alliance emerged from the election as the strongest force nationwide with 31.08 percent. During his time as a parliamentarian in Brussels, Bersani was not very active in European politics; he continued to concentrate on national politics in Rome.
Minister in the second Prodi government
In the parliamentary elections in Italy on April 9 and 10, 2006, Bersani was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies . After the electoral victory of the center-left alliance L'Unione , he was Minister of Economics in the second government of Romano Prodi from May 17, 2006 to May 8, 2008 . Bersani was responsible for various reforms with which the privileges of some professions dominated by professional organizations such as lawyers, pharmacists, medical professionals, gas attendants and newsagents were curtailed and opened to competition. During this time, Bersani consolidated his reputation as a pragmatic leftist with economic competence.
Party leader of the Democrats
When the Partito Democratico was founded in October 2007, Bersani was considered a possible candidate for the party chairmanship. However, he renounced in favor of his party friend from the left-wing Democrats ( Democratici di Sinistra ), Walter Veltroni .
After the resignation of Veltroni in February 2009, Bersani declared his candidacy for the party chairmanship, which the members and sympathizers of the party decided on October 25, 2009 in a primary election.
Bersani went as an outsider against the acting chairman Dario Franceschini in the election. But he was able to win the vote, in which 3.1 million Italians took part, with 53.23 percent, ahead of Franceschini (34.27%) and Senator Ignazio Marino (12.49%). In the internal party election campaign, Bersani was supported by the former Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema , the former Industry Minister Enrico Letta and the former Family Minister and committed women's rights activist Rosy Bindi , among others .
The Berlusconi government is overthrown
After Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had to resign on November 12, 2011 due to a vote defeat in the Chamber of Deputies, Bersani campaigned for the establishment of an expert government supported by a cross-camp coalition due to the country's financial crisis. This attitude earned Bersani respect from his opponents, as at that time the polls predicted a clear victory for the Democrats in possible new elections. In view of Italy's dramatic financial situation, Bersani argued that it could not be about party politics, but only about "saving the country".
Parliamentary elections in Italy 2013
In November and December 2012, the center-left parties held primaries to determine the top candidate for the 2013 general election . Bersani prevailed in the runoff election on December 2nd against the mayor of Florence , Matteo Renzi , with 60.65% of the vote. Over 2.6 million Italians who did not have to be party members took part in the runoff election.
In the parliamentary election on 24./25. In February 2013, Bersani ran as the top candidate of the center-left alliance, consisting of Partito Democratico , Sinistra Ecologia Libertà and several small parties. This alliance became the strongest force in both houses of parliament. In the Chamber of Deputies, the center-left alliance received 29.55% of the votes cast (excluding the votes of the Italians living abroad), in the Senate it received 31.63% (also excluding the votes of the Italians living abroad). Due to the peculiarities of the Italian electoral law, Bersani's alliance only has an absolute majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and therefore cannot govern on its own. On March 22nd, President Giorgio Napolitano charged Bersani with forming a government. However, after six days of exploratory talks, he did not succeed in forming a government with a majority.
Even in the election of a successor to President Giorgio Napolitano, Bersani could not prevail with his candidates. The candidate Franco Marini , who was nominated by Bersani's center-left alliance and Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition, failed in the first two ballots . Romano Prodi failed in the third and fourth ballots , and Bersani's camp denied him numerous votes in the two chambers of parliament. Bersani then announced his resignation as party leader of the PD. On May 11, 2013 he was replaced by Guglielmo Epifani .
From 2015 onwards, Bersani was increasingly in opposition to the new PD Chairman and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi . So he rejected the new suffrage represented by Renzi and the constitutional reform and declared that he would vote “no” in the constitutional referendum in 2016 . In February 2017, Bersani left the PD together with other representatives of the left wing and joined the new party Articolo 1 - Movimento Democratico e Progressista (Article 1-MDP).
Oddities
Because of his habit of speaking in original metaphors (example: “We are not here to wipe sea rocks dry”, as an appeal to our own people to concentrate on meaningful and pragmatic work), Bersani is a popular subject of satirists and comedians on TV. Bersani comments on this with self-irony. He agreed to appear in the satirical show Italialand with his most famous impersonator, comedian Maurizio Crozza , in which both of them engaged in a verbal duel with ad hoc metaphors.
Bersani has the reputation of a down-to-earth politician who is skeptical of modern, media-oriented politics. A photo before the Democratic Party Congress in January 2012, which was featured in many Italian newspapers, is considered characteristic. It was taken by a tourist and shows Bersani sitting alone with a glass of beer in a restaurant near the party headquarters and writing his keynote address for the party congress with pen and paper.
Web links
- www.pierluigibersani.it Personal website (Italian)
- Website for the 2013 election (Italian)
- Biography at the Italian Government (Italian)
- Profile at the Italian Chamber of Deputies (Italian)
- Entry on Pier Luigi Bersani in the European Parliament 's database of deputies
Individual evidence
- ^ Partito democratico, Bersani “Non mi candido alle primarie” La Repubblica, July 9, 2007
- ↑ Michael Braun: Super Mario does it. the daily newspaper , December 2, 2011, accessed on December 3, 2012 .
- ↑ Bersani: Noi by salvare l'Italia. (No longer available online.) Partito Democratico , November 11, 2011, formerly in the original ; Retrieved December 3, 2012 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Primary, Bersani stravince: oltre il 60%. La Repubblica, December 2, 2012, accessed December 3, 2012 .
- ^ Italian Ministry of the Interior , accessed March 10, 2013
- ↑ Nikos Tzermias: Pierluigi Bersani should explore. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , March 22, 2013, accessed on March 22, 2013 .
- ↑ State crisis in Italy: Bersani fails to form a government at Spiegel Online , March 28, 2013 (accessed on March 29, 2013).
- ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : Bersani plans to resign as party leader , April 19, 2013.
- ↑ Bersani: Non siamo qui ad asciugare gli scogli repubblica.it, June 18, 2011
- ↑ Bersani e la birra solitaria sky.it, January 20, 2012
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bersani, Pier Luigi |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bersani, Pierluigi |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian politician, member of the Camera, MEP |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 29, 1951 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bettola |