Mariastella Gelmini

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mariastella Gelmini (Leno, 1 July 1973) is an Italian lawyer (specialising in administrative law) and politician. She is presently the Minister of Education in the Berlusconi IV Cabinet. She is the regional coordinator of Forza Italia in Lombardy, and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in 2006 (XV legislatura) and again in the XVI legislatura, in 2008 for the Popolo della Libertà party.

[edit] Political career

Entering Forza Italia in the so-called "discesa nel campo" by Silvio Berlusconi, she was president of the "azzurro" club in Desenzano from 1994. In 1998 she gained the most votes among those elected to administrative council, ending in 2002 in the office of president of the council of the comune of Desenzano. However, in 2000 she lost the confidence of the Comune of Desenzano del Garda for absences.^[1]^{[citation needed]}.

From 2002 she was assessor of the territory of the province of Brescia, in which office she realised the "Piano Territoriale di Coordinamento Provinciale" and gained recognition for the new parks such as Parco della rocca e del sasso di Manerba and the enlargment of the Parco delle colline di Brescia and Parco del lago Moro. From 2004 she was made assessor of agriculture.

She gained the most votes in the Regione Lombardia in the circoscrizione of Brescia for Forza Italia, entering the regional council of Lombardy in April 2005. The following month, after this electoral success, she became Forza Italia's regional coordinator in Lombardia.

In 2006 Mariastella Gelmini was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, in which she was a member of the "giunta" for the authorization of proceedings, of the parliamentary committee on prosection proceedings and of the second justice commission.

She was the author of the legal bill "for the promotion and accomplishment of merit in society, the economy and the public administration" ("per la promozione e l'attuazione del merito nella società, nell'economia e nella pubblica amministrazione"), presented on 5 February 2008^[2].

On18 November 2007, in Piazza San Babila in Milan, she was at Silvio Berlusconi's side during the so-called "Discorso del Predellino", at which the birth of the Popolo della Libertà party was announced. She took part in the constituting committee which coordinated the working party on the statutes on new political movements. In 2008 she was reelected to the Chamber of Deputies in circoscrizione Lombardia II for the Popolo della Libertà party and became education minister in the Berlusconi IV Cabinet.