Piero Fassino

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Piero Fassino (born October 7, 1949) is an Italian politician, the national secretary of the Democrats of the Left (DS).

[edit] Biography

Fassino was born in Avigliana (province of Turin), in a traditional socialist family.

He graduated in Political Sciences and later registered with the Youth Communist Federation of Turin in 1968, becoming their secretary three years later.

In 1975 he was elected as Member of the City Council of the Piedmont regional capital, a position he remained in for ten years. From 1985 to 1990 he held a position as Provincial Councillor, also in Turin.

He was also secretary of the provincial Italian Communist Party (PCI) federation of Turin from 1983 to 1987, when he was elected as member of the National Secretary's Office of the party, first as the Secretary's Office Coordinator, then as Responsible of Organization, during the period where the party was transformed from the PCI into the PDS (Democratic Party of the Left).

From 1991 to 1996 he was International Secretary of the new party; his first election to the Chamber of Deputies (the first chamber of the Italian parliament) was in 1994. Re-elected in 1996, he was appointed in 1998 as Minister for Foreign Commerce in the government headed by Massimo D'Alema. From 2000, he was Minister of Justice in the Giuliano Amato government.

Candidate as vice-premier of the Olive Tree coalition in a ticket with former Rome Mayor Francesco Rutelli for the 2001 general elections in Italy won by the House of Freedoms rival coalition, he was still re-elected as a Member of Parliament.

In 2001, during the National Party Congress of the Democrats of the Left, he was elected as secretary (a position of leader in Italian political parties). He was then re-elected in February 2005, during the last party congress.

He is married with Anna Maria Serafini who has been elected in Senate (the second chamber of the Italian parliament) in 2006

Preceded by Oliviero Diliberto	Italian Minister of Justice 2000–2001	Succeeded by Roberto Castelli
Preceded by Walter Veltroni	Secretary of the Democrats of the Left 2001–	Succeeded by Incumbent