Pier Ferdinando Casini

Pier Ferdinando Casini (born 3 December 1955) is an Italian politician.

Casini was born in Bologna in 1955.

His father Tommaso was an Italian literature teacher and a local leader of the Christian Democracy (DC), while his mother Mirella was a librarian.

Casini has also two sisters and one brother.

After having attended the classical lyceum Luigi Galvani, in 1979 he graduated with a degree in law at the University of Bologna.

During these years he joined the Christian Democracy, like his father, and he was elected to the national directorate of the party's youth wing.

In 1980, Casini was elected municipal councillor in his hometown, Bologna, a traditional stronghold of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), the DC' historic rival.

Being elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1983 for the first time, Casini is the longest-serving member of the parliament in Italy.

In the 1983 Italian general election, at only 28 years old, Casini was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, becoming one of the youngest members of the parliament.

He run in the multi-member constituency of Bologna, gaining more than 34,000 votes.

During his first years as deputy, he became a close advisor of Arnaldo Forlani, one of the most prominent leaders of the DC, head of the conservative faction of the party.

In the 1987 Italian general election, he was re-elected with more than 52,000 votes and appointed vice president of the so-called "Massacres Commission", focused on the terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the Years of Lead.

When Forlani was elected secretary of the DC in February 1989, he appointed Casini in the national directorate of the party.

In the 1992 election, Casini was once again elected in Bologna's constituency with 50,000 votes.

From 1993 to 2001, he served as secretary of Christian Democratic Centre, while from 2002 until 2016 he was the leader of Union of the Centre.

In 1993, at the beginning of the secretariat of Mino Martinazzoli, the Christian Democracy was overwhelmed by investigations on Tangentopoli corruption scandal and mafia trial of the long-time Christian democratic leader, Giulio Andreotti.

The party suffered a serious consensus crisis, and Casini, together with Clemente Mastella, took positions against Martinazzoli, leaning towards an alliance with Forza Italia (FI), a new conservative political party founded by the media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Social Movement (MSI) of Gianfranco Fini and Umberto Bossi's Northern League (LN), aiming at forming a centre-right coalition in opposition to the centre-left one built around the post-communist Democratic Party of the Left (PDS).

On 18 January 1994, along with other Christian democrats who opposed the party's transformation into the Italian People's Party (PPI), Casini founded the Christian Democratic Centre (CDC).

On the same day, he was appointed secretary of the party.

In the 1994 general election, the CCD run in a joint list with Forza Italia as a member of the Pole of Freedoms in Northern Italy and the Pole of Good Government in Southern Italy, and gaining 27 deputies and 12 senators.

Casini was elected in the closed list constituency of Emilia-Romagna.

When Berlusconi's first government lost the support of Lega Nord, Casini did not support the newly formed technocratic cabinet of Lamberto Dini.

In the 1996 Italian general election, Casini's CDC formed a joint list with Rocco Buttiglione's United Christian Democrats (CDU).

However, the election was characterized by a strong aftermath of the centre-left coalition, The Olive Tree, led by Romano Prodi.

Casini was elected with nearly 40,000 votes in the single-member constituency of Maglie, in Apulia region.

From 1996 to 2001, he strongly opposed the centre-left governments which ruled the country.

He served as President of the Chamber of Deputies from 2001 to 2006.

Casini is the honorary president of the Centrist Democrat International and the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

In 2001, Casini's CDC joined the House of Freedoms alliance, once again led by Berlusconi.

The centre-right coalition largely won the 2001 election and Casini was elected to the Chamber for Pomezia's district, with 56,000 votes.

On 31 May 2001, he was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies; at 46 years old, he was one of the youngest ever.

On 14 November 2002, Casini was the protagonist of a historical event that never happened before: the visit of a Pope to Palazzo Montecitorio, the seat of the Chamber of Deputies.

Casini and Senate's president, Marcello Pera, invited Pope John Paul II to the house.

On 6 December 2002, the CDC formed, along with Buttiglione's UDC and Sergio D'Antoni's European Democracy (DE), the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC).

Casini, who was serving as the president of the Chamber of Deputies, could not be appointed secretary of the party and he would never be; however, from 2002 until 2016 when he left the party, Casini would be the most recognisable figure and de facto leader of UDC.

On 28 January 2006, Casini was elected president of the Christian Democratic International (IDC), succeeding José María Aznar, a position that he held until July 2015.

During the electoral campaign for the 2006 Italian general election, Casini hypothesized together with Gianfranco Fini, an alternative candidate for the position of Prime Minister, if UDC and Fini's National Alliance (AN) had reached a larger number of votes than those of Berlusconi's party.

The UDC in fact inserted Casini's name in the new electoral symbol.

However, the 2006 election was narrowly won by the centre-left coalition of Romano Prodi, who became the new Prime Minister.

Tensions between UDC and House of Freedoms became clear on 2 December 2006, when the centre-right parties, united in opposition to Prodi's cabinet, nevertheless organized two different demonstrations: Berlusconi, Fini and Bossi led the protest through Rome, while Casini and other leaders of UDC spoke in Palermo.