Massimo D'Alema

Biography

Massimo D'Alema (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmassimo daˈlɛːma]; born 20 April 1949) is an Italian politician who was the 53rd prime minister of Italy from 1998 to 2000. A member of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) and the Democrats of the Left (DS), he was Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2008. Earlier in his career, D'Alema was a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and was the first former Communist party member to become prime minister of a NATO country and the only former PCI prime minister of Italy. A member of the PCI since 1963, D'Alema was a member of the party's central committee and then of the leadership and party secretariat; from 1975 to 1980, he was also secretary of the Italian Communist Youth Federation (FGCI). He was supportive of party secretary Achille Occhetto's turning point that dissolved the PCI and established the PDS, presiding over the establishment of The Olive Tree coalition that won the 1996 Italian general election and the transformation of the PDS into the DS in 1998. He joined its subsequent iteration, the Democratic Party (PD) upon its foundation in 2007. He became an opponent of Matteo Renzi's secretariat, leaving the party in 2017.