The former prime minister and secretary of the DC, Ciriaco De Mita , died this morning at 7 in the Villa dei Pini nursing home in Avellino. For eight years he had been mayor of Nusco, a small village in the Avellino area where he was born in 1928.

De Mita, 94, had undergone surgery last February for a fractured femur following a fall at home .

He was following a rehabilitation process.

From 1988 to 1989 he was president of the Council of Ministers, at the head of a government formed by the Pentapartite coalition (DC-PSI-PRI-PSDI-PLI) which fell in May 1989 due to a crisis triggered by the socialist leader and his main rival. Bettino Craxi.

He was also national secretary from 1982 to 1989 and then president of the Christian Democrats from 1989 to 1992 , as well as four times minister . Again: deputy from 1963 to 1994 and from 1996 to 2008, and member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004.

His influence was responsible for the appointment of Romano Prodi as his economic advisor and then president of IRI and the political commitment of the current President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi in a note expressed "his deepest condolences for the disappearance" of a "protagonist of Italian parliamentary and political life on the Christian Democratic left".

(Unioneonline / D)

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