Goria, Giovanni

(1943–1994)

   Republican Italy’s youngest-ever president of the Council of Ministers(prime minister), Goria was a native of the Piedmont town of Asti. His national political career began in 1976, when he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies; his ministerial career began just a few years later. In December 1982, Goria became minister for the treasury and held this post until his accession to the premiership in July 1987. During his spell as treasury minister, a huge increase in public spending took place, and the Italian state regularly ran annual budget deficits of 12–14 percent of GDP.

   As prime minister, Goria soon discovered that he had little or no power to implement cuts in spending or to follow any constructive policies at all. Closely allied to Ciriaco De Mita, the then secretary of the Democrazia Cristiana/Christian Democracy Party (DC), Goria found that his government was hostage to the campaign being waged against De Mita by the Partito Socialista Italiano/Italian Socialist Party (PSI), and by the DC leader’s own rivals within the party. His nine months as prime minister were a period of permanent political crisis in which Goria himself aged visibly. His treatment by the press was quite ruthless: To symbolize Goria’s political nullity, one cartoonist began to represent the prime minister by drawing only his trademark wavy hair and full beard. Goria’s government collapsed in March 1988. He returned to ministerial office only in 1991, as agriculture minister, and took the more prestigious post of finance minister in the administration formed by Giuliano Amato in June 1992. He resigned in January 1993 after he was briefly placed under investigation by the judiciary of his native Asti. He died there in May 1994.