Walter Veltroni

Walter Veltroni (born 3 July, 1955) is an Italian politician and member of the Democrats of the Left (DS) party. He has served as Mayor of Rome since 2001, and is widely considered the most popular mayor in Italy.

Career

Walter Veltroni was born in Rome.

He started his political career as member of the Italian Young Communist Federation, then served as Rome city counsellor from 1976 to 1981, before being elected as Member of Parliament for the first time in 1987. Chosen as a member of the Italian Communist Party's national secretariat in 1988, he played a lead role in the party's transformation to the social-democratic party it is today.

Veltroni, a professional journalist, was chosen from 1992 to 1996 as editor-in-chief of the newspaper of the Democratic Party of the Left (later the DS), L'Unità. He then successfully ran as vice-premier candidate, together with Romano Prodi, for the 1996 national election in Italy. He left his job in office in 1998, subsequent to his election as National Secretary of the Democrats of the Left.

As a candidate in 2001 for the office of Mayor of Rome, he eventually won the election against Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia, Veltroni resigned as leader of the party.

On January 1, 2006 Veltroni received the Cavaliere di Gran Croce (Knight of the Great Cross), Italy's highest award, from President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

On May 29, 2006, Veltroni was confirmed Mayor of Rome, beating the former Minister of Agriculture Gianni Alemanno, of National Alliance. Veltroni received 61,4% of the valid votes against the 37,1% achieved by his main opponent.

Walter Veltroni is also Vice-President of United Cities and Local Governments.

In August 2006 he published his first novel, La scoperta dell'alba (The discovery of sunrise).

Works

Veltroni has written a number of books on various topics, such as music, social issues, fiction, biographies and, of course, politics.

• 1977 - Il PCI e la questione giovanile (The PCI and the Youth Question)
• 1978 - A dieci anni dal ’68. Intervista con Achille Occhetto (Ten Years since '68: Interview with Achille Occhetto)
• 1981 - Il sogno degli anni sessanta (The dream of the Sixties)
• 1982 - Il calcio è una scienza da amare (Football is a science to be loved)
• 1990 - Io e Berlusconi (e la Rai) (Berlusconi and me (and RAI))
• 1992 - I programmi che hanno cambiato l’Italia (Programs that changed Italty)
• 1992 - Il sogno spezzato. Le idee di Robert Kennedy (The broken dream. The ideas of Robert Kennedy)
• 1992 - La sfida interrotta. Le idee di Enrico Berlinguer (The interrupted challenge. The ideas of Enrico Berlinguer)
• 1994 - Certi piccoli amori (Certain small Loves)
• 1995 - La bella politica (interview book) (Politics, the beautiful)
• 1997 - Certi piccoli amori 2 (Certain Small Loves II)
• 1997 - Governare da sinistra (To Govern from the Left)
• 2000 - I care
• 2000 - Forse Dio è malato. Diario di un viaggio africano (Perhaps God is sick: Diary of an African journey)
• 2003 - Il disco del mondo. Vita breve di Luca Flores, musicista (The disk of the world: A brief life of Luca Flores, musician)
• 2004 - Senza Patricio (Without Patricio)
• 2006 - La scoperta dell'alba

Trivia

• Veltroni is the Italian dubber of character Mayor Turkey Lurkey for the animated movie Chicken Little, released by Walt Disney Pictures in late 2005. His remuneration for the part was donated to charity. [1]
• Even though a native of Rome, Veltroni is a well-known supporter of Juventus, a football team from Turin.
• He is a friend of singer-songwriter Francesco De Gregori and film director Nanni Moretti. In the 1990s, both of them appeared alongisde Veltroni in some celebrations after political elections in Italy.

External links

• (Italian) Repubblica.it: A brief portrait of Veltroni
• World Mayors: Walter Veltroni
• Article about Walter Veltroni from Time magazine

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