Ciriaco De Mita

Ciriaco De Mita
Ciriaco De Mita as Prime Minister of Italy
Prime Minister of Italy
In office 13 April 1988 – 23 July 1989
President	Francesco Cossiga
Preceded by	Giovanni Goria
Succeeded by	Giulio Andreotti
Minister for Interventions in Southern Italy
In office 30 July 1976 – 21 March 1979
Prime Minister	Giulio Andreotti
Preceded by	Giulio Andreotti (by delegation of functions)
Succeeded by	Michele Di Giesi
Minister of Foreign Trade
In office 23 November 1974 – 30 July 1976
Prime Minister	Aldo Moro
Preceded by	Gianmatteo Matteotti
Succeeded by	Rinaldo Ossola
Minister of Industry, Commerce and Crafts
In office 8 July 1973 – 23 November 1974
Prime Minister	Mariano Rumor
Preceded by	Mauro Ferri
Succeeded by	Carlo Donat-Cattin
Secretary of the Christian Democracy
In office 5 May 1982 – 22 February 1989
Preceded by	Flaminio Piccoli
Succeeded by	Arnaldo Forlani
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office 28 April 1963 – 28 March 1994
In office 21 April 1996 – 14 April 2008
Mayor of Nusco
In office 26 May 2014 – 26 May 2022
Preceded by	Giuseppe De Mita
Personal details
Born	Luigi Ciriaco De Mita (1928-02-02)2 February 1928 Nusco, Campania, Italy
Died	26 May 2022(2022-05-26) (aged 94) Avellino, Campania, Italy
Political party	Christian Democracy (1956–1994) Italian People's Party (1994–2002) The Daisy (2002–2007) Democratic Party (2007–2008) Union of the Centre (2008–2017) Italy is Popular (2017–2022)
Spouse	Anna Maria Scarinzi ​ (m. 1958)​
Children	4
Relatives	Giuseppe De Mita (nephew)
Alma mater	Catholic University of Milan

Luigi Ciriaco De Mita (Italian pronunciation: [tʃiˈriːako luˈiːdʒi de ˈmiːta]; 2 February 1928 – 26 May 2022) was an Italian politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy from April 1988 to July 1989.

A member of the Christian Democracy (DC), De Mita served as its secretary and leader from May 1982 until February 1989, becoming one of the most influential politicians in the country, as well as one of the most prominent members of DC's left-wing. During his long-time career, he also served as Minister of Industry, Commerce and Crafts from 1973 to 1974, Minister of Foreign Trade from 1974 to 1976 and Minister for Interventions in the South from 1976 until 1979. He had been a member of the Chamber of Deputies for more than 40 years between 1963 and 2008. In recent years, De Mita served as mayor of Nusco, his hometown near Avellino, from 2014 until his death in 2022.

Early life and studies

Ciriaco De Mita was born in Nusco in the Avellinese hinterland in 1928. His father was a tailor and postman, while his mother was a housewife. After attending the classical high school in nearby Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi with excellent grades, he won a scholarship in the Augustinianum College and enrolled at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, where he graduated in law and then started working as a consultant at Enrico Mattei's Eni legal office. His wife, Anna Maria Scarinzi, was the secretary of Fiorentino Sullo, a Christian democratic politician from Irpinia.

Political career

De Mita with Arnaldo Forlani and Benigno Zaccagnini in 1970

As a young man, De Mita joined the Christian Democracy (DC) and entered politics. In 1953, De Mita was among the proponents of "Left-wing Base", a leftist wing of the party, close to Enrico Mattei and Giovanni Marcora. He rose through the ranks of the party, becoming a member of its national council in 1956. During the party congress in Trento, De Mita hold a speech particularly critic of DC's leader Amintore Fanfani. In the 1963 general election, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the constituency of Benevento–Avellino–Salerno with more than 67,000 votes. In 1968 De Mita was appointed undersecretary of state to the Ministry of Interior, becoming a member of the government for the first time. During these years, De Mita overshadowed Fiorentino Sullo as the Christian democrats' de facto leader in Irpinia and established his own inner circle composed by Gerardo Bianco, Nicola Mancino, Gianni Raviele and Attilio Fierro.

On 9 November 1969, De Mita was appointed deputy secretary of the Christian Democracy, serving under the leadership of Arnaldo Forlani; he hold the position until 17 June 1973. During the 1970s, De Mita hold various positions in the government. He served in the cabinet of Mariano Rumor as Minister of Industry, Trade and Crafts from 8 July 1973 until 23 November 1974; Minister of Foreign Trade from 23 November 1974 to 30 July 1976 in the government of Aldo Moro and Minister for Extraordinary Interventions in Southern Italy in the cabinet of Giulio Andreotti from 30 July 1976 to 21 March 1979.

Secretary of the Christian Democracy

In the 1982 party congress, De Mita was elected secretary of the Christian Democracy, as a compromise candidate between his own leftist wing and Giulio Andreotti and Amintore Fanfani's factions. In the run-up, De Mita defeated Forlani. As party's leader, De Mits suffered a huge lost in the 1983 general election, with the DC losing more than 5 pp from the 1979 election.

He was re-elected in 1986 with 60% support from the party.

Prime Minister of Italy

After the elections of 1987, De Mita waited a year to become Prime Minister, and then served as Prime Minister for a year, maintaining the party chairmanship. At the beginning of that service, on 16 April 1988, in Forlì, Red Brigades killed Senator Roberto Ruffilli, an advisor of De Mita. In social policy, De Mita's time in office witnessed the passage of a law in May 1988 that introduced a new benefit for salaried workers called "benefit for the family nucleus" ("assegno per il nucleo familiare"), with the amount varying depending on the number of family members and the family income of the previous year.

Later political roles

De Mita returned to Parliament, after a lag of two years, in 1996 (and then re-elected in 2001 and 2006). He then joined the Italian People's Party and later Democracy is Freedom - The Daisy, the party of which he was the regional coordinator for Campania. He headed the Olive Tree's list in his region in 2006, and he participated in the transformation of that coalition into a single party (the Democratic Party). He joined the Union of the Centre. After the 2008 elections, De Mita was not elected to the Italian Senate, but he was nominated as the Campania coordinator of the party. De Mita won a seat in the European Parliament in the June 2009 European election. On 25 May 2014 De Mita was elected as mayor of Nusco, his native town. And served just 8 years when he died.

Personal life and death

In 1958, De Mita married Anna Maria Scarinzi (born 12 February 1939), with whom he had one son and three daughters, Antonia (born 23 December 1967), Giuseppe (born 10 May 1969), Floriana (born 19 March 1973), and Simona (born 21 April 1974).

De Mita died on 26 May 2022, at the age of 94, while recovering from surgery for a fracture of a femur following a fall at home.