Leoluca Orlando

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Leoluca Orlando (born August 1, 1947), is an Italian politician, who was mayor of Palermo in 1985-1990 and 1993-2000. He is best known for his strong opposition to the Sicilian Mafia.

[edit] Biography

Orlando was born in Palermo. He studied in Germany and England, graduated in jurisprudence and worked as lawyer and professor in the University of Palermo.

He was a member of Christian Democracy (DC), in the left wing of the party. In 1978-1980 he was advisor to the President of Sicily Region Piersanti Mattarella who was killed by the Mafia. From 1985-1990 he was elected mayor of Palermo, and received numerous menaces for his explicit struggle against the power of the Mafia in the city. He was re-elected as mayor in 1993 with the 75.2& of the votes. In 1992 he was also elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies. Two years later he became a member of the European Parliament.

After the dissolution of DC, he founded a popular movement called La Rete ("The Net"), which later, in 1999, joined with Romano Prodi's Democrats. In 2001 he was amongst the founders of The Daisy, the Italian party currently including most of the former left-winged members of DC.

In the december 2000 he resigned from the position of mayor and was a candidate for the presidency of the autonomous region of Sicily. He was, however, defeated by the centre-right candidate Salvatore Cuffaro. In 2006 he was expelled from the Daisy, after having shown his full support for the candidacy of Rita Borsellino in the Sicilian presidential centre-left primary election, contrary to the line of his party that supported its member Ferdinando Latteri. He subsequently joined Antonio Di Pietro's Italy of Values with whom he was elected at the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

He will run as centre-left candidate for mayor of Palermo, after having won the centre-left primary election in a landslide with about 72% of the votes.