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.
Orlando was born in Palermo. He studied in Germany and the UK, 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. He entered politics in 1976 as legal adviser to Christian Democratic reformer Piersanti Mattarella, who became president of the Sicilian Region in 1978. The two men set out to break the Mafia's hold on the island, transferring budget authority from the corrupt regional government back to the cities and passing a law enforcing the same building standards used in the rest of Italy, thereby making the Mafia's building schemes illegal.[1] In retaliation, the Mafia killed Mattarella in January 1980.
The brother of Mattarella and other associates urged him to run for the Palermo municipal council, he ran successfully, and was elected mayor by the town council in 1985.[1] From 1985-1990 he was elected mayor of Palermo, and received many threats as a result of his open opposition to the power of the Mafia in the city. He was re-elected as mayor in 1993 with 75.2% of the vote. 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 in 1999 joined with Romano Prodi's Democrats. In 2001 he was among the founders of The Daisy, an Italian party currently including most of the former left-wing members of DC.
Since 2000, he's the President of the "Sicilian Renaissance Institute" a non-profit organization dealing with the promotion of economy and culture of lawfullness and Human rights.[2]
In 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 the Italy of Values of Antonio Di Pietro with whom he was elected at the Italian Chamber of Deputies. He has been the President of the Parliamentary Commission for Regional affairs.
In April 2008 he has been re-elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
On May 2007 he ran 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. He however lost to incumbent Diego Cammarata of the House of Freedoms, who obtained about 53% of votes compared with Orlando's 45%.[3] Following the results, Orlando denounced massive electoral frauds and asked for the annulment of the vote.[4] His accusations are currently under evaluation by both the Penal and the Administrative Tribunals of Sicily.
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