Walter Veltroni (Rome, 1955) is a Italian politician and lead member of the Democrats of the Left party. He has served as Mayor of Rome since 2001.

He started his political career as member of the Italian Young Communist Federation, then he served as Rome city counsellor from 1976 to 1981, before being elected as Member of Parliament for the first time in 1987. Chosen as 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, who is a professional journalist, was chosen from 1992 to 1996 as editor-in-chief of the newspaper of the Democratic Party of the Left (later renamed Democrats of the Left), 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. It was speculated that Silvio Berlusconi, leader of Forza Italia, had "surrendered Rome" to Veltroni because Tajani was recognized as a weak candidate. Before taking his new office, Veltroni resigned from his lead position in the party.

Bibliography

Veltroni wrote several books, roaming freely among differing topics, such as music, social issues, fiction, biographies and, of course, politics.

1977 - Il PCI e la questione giovanile

1978 - A dieci anni dal ’68. Intervista con Achille Occhetto

1981 - Il sogno degli anni sessanta

1982 - Il calcio è una scienza da amare

1990 - Io e Berlusconi (e la Rai)

1992 - I programmi che hanno cambiato l’Italia

1992 - Il sogno spezzato. Le idee di Robert Kennedy

1992 - La sfida interrotta. Le idee di Enrico Berlinguer

1994 - Certi piccoli amori

1995 - La bella politica (interview book)

1997 - Certi piccoli amori 2

1997 - Governare da sinistra

2000 - I care

2000 - Forse Dio è malato. Diario di un viaggio africano

2003 - Il disco del mondo. Vita breve di Luca Flores, musicista

2004 - Senza Patricio

Links

• Massimo D'Alema
• Piero Fassino

External links

• Repubblica.it: A short portrayal about Walter Veltroni (in Italian)