Achille Occhetto
Achille Occhetto ( born March 3, 1936 in Turin ) is an Italian politician. Sporadically, he was nicknamed " Akel ". He was elected general secretary of the Partito Comunista 1988 Italiano ( PCI), which changed its name in 1991 in Democratic Party of the Sinistra (PDS ). Occhetto remained until 1994, at the head of the newly formed party.
Political career
Born into a middle class family from Turin Occhetto was 1962-1966 National Secretary of the Communist youth organization FGCI. In the same year he was first elected to the Central Committee of the PCI. He served as Director of Agitation and Propaganda Department. From 1969 to 1977, initially completed the work as secretary of the provincial leadership of the PCI in Palermo and later as Regional Secretary in Sicily, where he engaged inter alia in the fight against the Mafia. After his return to the Roman party headquarters he first took over the management of the department college and universities, after the Department of Southern Italian affairs. In 1983, he was, during the tenure of Enrico Berlinguer as Secretary-General, was elected to the party secretariat.
After his appointment as national coordinator of the PCI in 1986 he was with the early retirement of Alessandro Natta as its Secretary General predestined successor, especially as he had previously held office as Deputy Secretary-General only. At a meeting of the Central Committee and the Control Commission of the PCI on July 21, 1988 Occhetto was elected in a first open vote with three votes against and five abstentions to head of his party.
Since 1976, he represented the electoral district of Palermo in the Italian Chamber of Deputies. During his tenure as Secretary-General, the PCI had to deal after the fall of the Berlin Wall with the demise of the communist system of the Soviet Union. Therefore Occhetto the communist experiment ended and replaced the PCI on to found a new left-wing party, the PDS. This political change ( in Italy called Bolognina ) was not accepted by an estimated one-third of the members, which are not joined the PDS and the Partito della instead Refoundation founded.
In the parliamentary elections of 1994 Occhetto stood as rival candidate of Silvio Berlusconi ( Forza Italia ) and was following his election defeat, the Office of the Secretary General from.
In 2004, he returned at the elections to the European Parliament back in active politics and was elected on the list of corruption opponent Antonio Di Pietro for MEPs. After disagreements with Di Pietro, he left his position but in the same year Giulietto Chiesa, a former communist journalists. In November 2004, he called with Giulietto Chiesa, Elio Veltri, Paolo Sylos Labini, Antonello Falomi Diego Novelli and the Association Il Cantiere per il bene comune intended for their national coordinator ( " The construction site for the common good " ) and was launched.
There were always rumors about a possible accession to Occhettos Refoundation, but what he strictly denied. However, he confirmed the birth of start-up companies left - after the PDS also the Federazione dei Verdi, to the Socialisti Democratici Italiani, and not least to the Partito della Refoundation - to have contributed indirectly.
On May 13, 2001 Occhetto was chosen as representative of the region of Calabria in the Italian Senate, where he served until 2006, the " mixed group " non-attached senators. In 2006, he came as substitutes to the European Parliament. On 14 December 2007 he joined the Sinistra Democrática.