Piero Fassino (born October 7, 1949 in Avigliana, Turin) is the current secretary of the Democrats of the Left (DS), currently the major opposition party at the Italian parliament.
Born from a family of socialist traditions, and graduated in Political Sciences, he registered to the Youth Communist Federation of Turin in 1968, of which became then secretary three years later.
In 1975 he was elected as Member of the City Council of the Piedmont regional capital, office that him maintained for ten years, while from 1985 to 1990 he hold a position as Provincial Councillor, still in Turin.
He was also secretary of the provincial Italian Communist Party (PCI) federation of Turin from 1983 to 1987, when he was elected as member of the National Secretary's Office of the party, first as Secretary's Office Coordinator, then as Responsible of Organization, where he lived the trick transformation phase from PCI to PDS (Left Democrats Party).
From 1991 to 1996 he is International Secretary of the new party; his first election in the Chamber of Deputies (the first chamber of the Italian parliament) is dated 1994. Re-elected in 1996, he is appointed in 1998 as Ministry for the Foreign Commerce of the government headed by Massimo D'Alema. From 2000, he is Ministry of Justice of the Giuliano Amato government.
Candidate as vice-premier of the Olive Tree coalition in a ticket with former Rome Mayor Francesco Rutelli for the 2001 general elections in Italy won by the House of Freedoms rival coalition, he was anyway re-elected as deputy.
In 2001, during the National Party Congress of the Democrats of the Left, he is elected as secretary, that is actually the leader figure of every Italian party. He was then re-elected in February 2005, in the last party congress.
