Ciriaco Luigi de Mita (born 2 February 1928) is an Italian politician. He served as Prime Minister of Italy from 1988 to 1989 and is currently a Member of the European Parliament.

Biography

De Mita was born in Nusco, in the Avellinese hinterland.

As a young man he joined the Democrazia Cristiana and entered politics. He rose through the ranks of the party, becoming a member of its council in 1956, a member of Parliament in 1963 and a member of the Italian cabinet in 1973. During the next decade he served as Minister of Industry and then as Minister of Foreign Trade.

De Mita became chairman of the party in 1982 at a time when its power was declining. He was reelected in 1986 with 60% support from the party. The Christian Democrats did well in the elections of 1987. De Mita waited a year to become Prime Minister, and then served as Prime Minister for a year, maintaining the party chairmanship. At the beginning of that service, on 16 April 1988, in Forlì, Red Brigades killed Senator Roberto Ruffilli, an advisor of de Mita.

De Mita returned in Parliament, after a lag of two years, in 1996 (and then re-elected in 2001 and 2006). He then joined the Italian People's Party and later Democracy is Freedom - Daisy, party of which he is regional secretary for Campania. He headed the Olive Tree's list in his region in 2006, and he participated to the transformation that coalition into a single party (the Democratic Party). Following an attempt by the chairmanship (presided by Walter Veltroni) at rejuvenating the ranks of the Democratic Party, he was refused a place on the ballot for the 2008 political elections, on the grounds that a total of 44 years and 9 months of active presence on the Italian Parliament may be long enough and that more space needed to be given to younger candidates. Offended by the decision, he left the party in retaliation, and joined the Pierferdinando Casini's Union of Christian and Centre Democrats party. After the 2008 elections, he was not elected at the Italian Senate House, but he was nominated as the Campania coordinator of the party.

De Mita won a seat in the European Parliament in the June 2009 European election; at age 81, he was the oldest candidate to win a seat in that election.