Fernando Chiovitti

The Right Honourable Fernando Chiovitti


70th prime minister of Pacitalia
Incumbent
In office 23rd October, 2006 —
Political party	Pacitalian Social Coalition
Preceded by	Albinanda Serodini

Born	30th May, 1949 Concertina, Acqua Verdi, Pacitalia
Spouse	Albertina Chiovitti
Profession	Politician, businessman
Religion	Agnostic
Languages	Pacitalian, English

The Honourable Signore Fernando Bassoni Mario Felix Chiovitti, MPP, MBA, (born 30th May 1949 on Isola Lampedusa, Acqua Verdi, Pacitalia) is the current leader of the Pacitalian Social Coalition and prime minister of Pacitalia. He is the 104th leader of the Pacitalian Social Coalition, having succeeded the controversial Aracio Partiva in a leadership convention on 4th April, 2004. He is Pacitalia's 70th prime minister, having been sworn in on 23rd October, 2006.

Fernando Chiovitti is socially a leftist, with strong welfarist values despite his corporate connections. Economically, he believes in the principles of economic nationalism and mercantilism. This has led many of his fellow business partners to publicly label him a "traitor to the corporate world". However, Chiovitti's championing of welfare over social safety nets and his desire to lead Pacitalia under a mixed capitalist/socialist system (like the third way, for example) has earned him many more votes than a PSC under Aracio Partiva (much more leftist) would have. Under his leadership, the PSC completed, in September 2006, a long-awaited shift to the centre of the Pacitalian political spectrum, and combined with the troubles of the governing Federation of Progressive Democrats, is widely expected to be a central component of the next government (a component because the distribution of popular support in opinion polls has led political scientists to assert the next government will be a coalition, and not a majority).

Early life

Fernando Chiovitti was born on the 30th of May, 1949, in the village of Concertina, 4km west of Isola Lampedusa's largest city Catassorna di Mare. Lampedusa is the westernmost island in the Serrigusa chain of Acqua Verdi, one of three Pacitalian provinces completely made up of island landmasses. From an early age, Chiovitti had his own politically-charged beliefs, witnessing with a heavy heart the poverty that some residents on the isolated landmass were subjected to, either willingly or unwillingly. Deeming it unfair, but moreso encouraged to work hard in order to end up successful, Chiovitti began his first enterprise, selling lemonade and iced coffee from a stand for 10 fouta a glass. Over that summer, in 1956, he earned nearly 150 doura (the equivalent of about 1,100 doura today) and gave him his first taste of business success. Buoyed by his fiduciary triumph, Chiovitti also earned his first glance at de facto corporate social responsibility by donating 100 doura to a local charity. He was awarded with the provincial government's Young Leader of the Year for 1956.

Neither impoverished nor a product of the nouveau-riche nobility emerging in Pacitalia during the 1950s, Chiovitti lived under a modest lower-middle class lifestyle. His father, Bassoni, was a relatively successful baker and pastatore (Pacitalian for "expert doughmaker"), supplying pizza dough and pasta noodles to local restaurants. Bassoni's products were renowned on the island for quality and taste. Meanwhile, his mother remained a stay-at-home mom for the first ten years of Chiovitti's life before reentering the workforce as a secretary for an Acqua Verdian coalmining concern. The average income of his parents led him into a public school where he excelled in mathematics and the study of technology (both present and upcoming). It was at that time he took an interest in the operation and services of the telecommunications industry and began forming ideas on how to improve the system and keep up with upcoming technologies.

Earning a scholarship out of public secondary school, Chiovitti headed to the University of Portshire (Hamptonshire) and graduated from the prestigious school's Master of Business Administration program in 1973, earning first-class honours and a imperatus specialitat in telecommunications. In previous sit-down interviews Chiovitti claims he tried to learn Søskendansk while attending post-secondary in the Grand Archduchy (1) but only learned snippets and still cannot really understand it today. In fact, he says he was never really good at languages and so remains simply a speaker of Pacitalian and English.

Telecommunications career and his rise to the corporate echelon

Chiovitti returned to Pacitalia immediately after completing his MBA in Hamptonshire, joining the PSC's youth wing in January 1974. Still, he remained relatively out of any political participation, instead focusing on his career, entering the telecom field as an optics engineer for Telecom Nazionale Pacitaliana (known later as tnpSonera, and EuroSonera as of 2006, due to tnpSonera's acquisition-merger of EuroTelecom). Chiovitti's immense knowledge of fibre optics and his knack for quickly learning new technology as it entered the marketplace cleared a path for his quick ascension to the echelon of TNP, and by 1985 he was enjoying promotion to the position of Senior Vice President of Telecom and Network Innovation. Chiovitti's work made TNP a leader in the field of optics communications and his efforts also laid the groundwork for the creation of the world wide web via the introduction of dialup modem hardware to Pacitalia in the spring of 1988.

Political career

However, with the defeat of Athena Papistikas' PSC (then the Liberals) in the 1985 election and the subsequent scandal of the Giorgio Cassata Conservative administration, Chiovitti was itching to see the reformed Liberals back in power. Papistikas' efforts saw the party move slightly more to the centre to appeal to voters in time for the 1993 general election, but the Capitalists were re-elected under Francesco Santo Ragazzo. When that tactic failed, Papistikas tried to move the party back to the left but lost the support of a majority of the party members and so was forced to resign effective 1st November, 1995, allowing a new leader to fight the upcoming election against the Capitalist Party. With Santo Ragazzo resigning due to failing health, the Liberals renamed themselves the Pacitalian Social Coalition, adopted a set of principles entitled "Three People, Three Degrees of Social Democracy" (reflected in the pre-2006 logo) in order to explain their drive to encompass most aspects of the three major subideologies of the left (social liberalism, social democracy and welfare socialism) in their new policy.

Meanwhile, Chiovitti, spurred on by Papistikas' attempts to reform the party and push it closer to the centre, became much more active heading into the 1993 elections, contesting a seat in Acqua Verdi and easily winning it over the Capitalist candidate with the support of a working-class voting core. Chiovitti remained a back-bench MPP through the 1993-96 Capitalist government, but decided to contest the leadership upon Papistikas' resignation (partly on her recommendation). However, he was disenchanted to find that a large majority of the new PSC did not share his ideas for social reform mixed with continued economic liberalism, and so lost the leadership vote to Aracio Partiva in early 1996. Partiva consequently led the PSC to opposition status in the August 1996 general elections, but with a reduced seat count due to the popularity of new prime minister Timothy Ell. Chiovitti was "disgusted" when he heard news after the election that interim leader Verano Ampasora had, shortly before the Liberals' name and ideological reformat, okayed a scheme in which the Liberals paid ideologically sympathetic advertising companies excessive sums to produce ads for a mass media campaign, in order to gain popularity in Capitalist strongholds. The scandal did not affect the PSC's vote and seat share as much as had been expected, to the relief of the party and surprise of political scientists, but definitely kept them from winning the election. Partiva's ironic promises to end corruption within the party were the only reason Chiovitti stayed in politics and did not return to TNP.

Rising status as a politician

During Ell's first government, Chiovitti served as the PSC opposition critic for finances (1996-98), and then, for industry, commerce and trade (1998-2000). However, with the outstanding efforts and successes of the first Ell administration, he watched the PSC's seat tally crumble, with the Capitalist Party taking a larger share of the Constazione Ampoliticato Federali and the Senatoro Federali, in the September 2000 vote.

With the PSC holding just 28 seats in a 120-seat parliament compared with the Capitalists' 77, Chiovitti was witnessing the steady decline of Aracio Partiva as an effective party leader, and the PSC itself as a competent opposition to the government. He began voicing his disapproval of Partiva's leadership and was subsequently punted by a concerned Partiva from his critic position, returned to the backbench after five years on the political front lines. The extensive publicity from Partiva's move helped Chiovitti round up a group of supporters in the PSC caucus that were equally disapproving of Partiva as leader and by 2003, it emerged that over eighty percent of the PSC supported Chiovitti, compared to just eleven percent backing Partiva.

The final blow to Partiva's legitimacy as opposition leader and party leader was dealt in late 2003, when PBC News reported during a newscast that the PSC party president, Michel Brazzononi, was looking into allegations of campaign financing and accounting irregularities. The accusations were brought to the forefront by a third-party auditing company that was doing a routine checkup on the PSC's books. Further investigation proved that Partiva was behind one of the most extensive kickback schemes and, thus, corruption scandals in both PSC and Pacitalian history. Shamed and alienated by the remaining sections of his party, Partiva faced "absolute-zero", a Pacitalian political term to describe the point where a leader has literally no support and must either resign or be fired. Partiva did just that, resigning in early 2004, three months before prime minister Ell called for a general election. He left a PSC reeling from what was arguably its biggest embarrassment in five centuries of existence.

Leadership of the PSC

The subsequent leadership convention on 4th April, 2004, saw Fernando Chiovitti defeat friend and political mentor Athena Papistikas 54-46 on the final ballot to wrest the position away from a politically-resurgent former PSC leader. Immediately, he set to work rebuilding the fractured party, tossing all the executive except the party president, Brazzononi, who had been cleared of wrongdoing in the funding scandal and had been consistently admired by nearly all the party members for his dedication. He began setting up framework for reforming the party's policies, as he and his supporters were convinced a slight shift to the right on the spectrum would be the only way Pacitalians would find the party appealing in future elections.

However, Partiva's scandal combined with the 1996 ad-funding scandal continued to keep the PSC under an imaginary forcefield, and with the resurgence of the Greens under new leader Neros Constantakis, the PSC was shocked to find themselves third on election night on 29th May, 2004 (the eve of Chiovitti's 55th birthday). The Capitalists, who had renamed themselves the Federation of Progressive Democrats in February 2004, had captured their fifth-straight majority, with the Greens the surprise opposition. Relegated to third-fiddle status with just 22 of the 240 seats in an expanded lower house (compared to the FPD's 129 and the Greens' 71), rumblings through the party suggested Chiovitti might be punted from the leader's chair very prematurely. Chiovitti, not terribly affected by the results, told his defeated troops in a strangely upbeat concession speech that "anyone who thought the PSC would form government or the opposition was sadly mistaken... the rebuilding is still ongoing, and the surface has barely been scratched" (2). The eloquence of his dictum guided potential strays back to the fold and the PSC, as it rebuilt over the next two years, also gained confidence to the point where it was undermining the Greens' role as opposition. Pacitalians rewarded Chiovitti's hard work, returning it to the opposition on 25th January, 2006 in the election that put the FPD's Constantino Sorantanali into power with the right-of-centre party's sixth-straight majority government.

The FPD/Sorantanali scandal

Chiovitti's rebuilding efforts were further rewarded when prime minister Sorantanali resigned on the evening of 8th August, 2006, due to unconscionably heavy political pressure and his admission that he had ordered the murder of a political opponent. This, combined with the shocking murder of his family and increasing pressure to resign, and the suicide of his friend and political first mate, Domenico Benficalzo at a trade conference in Bazalonia, put the FPD's integrity and reputation at a record rock-bottom, with public support for the party consequently dropping like a stone. However, the opinion polls showed support for the FPD levelling out after a sharp drop of about ten points, mostly on the announcement that Albinanda Serodini would take over in the interim until the next election, which was scheduled for 16th October, 2006. Chiovitti still saw an opportunity to grow the party's base by advocating the PSC as a party willing to revisit the messy system that allowed Sorantanali to stay in power for as long as he did despite poll numbers suggesting he had less than ten percent public support.

The party's share of public support started growing slowly but steadily, and by September, when it became apparent that Serodini and the FPD would waive her right to contest the party's leadership at a future convention, the PSC overtook the Federation in the polls, registering their first polls lead in almost 22 years (a 35-31 advantage over the incumbent government) - (3). Their ascent to the lead was helped with the finalisation of their shift to the right that month, to become a party advocating social-democratic principles with a nationalist structure over the economy, equating to increased government involvement in economic affairs. The PSC's ascent was also helped by the fact that, with Serodini's decision not to seek the FPD leadership, and most of the current FPD faces -- that most say would have made good leaders -- choosing to not seek another term, it gave the FPD the appearance of a "ransacked, directionless ship" (4). As of the latest poll, Chiovitti's PSC enjoys a ten-point lead over the FPD (5), and if those numbers hold, could see himself as Pacitalia's next prime minister. However, as mentioned, because the FPD's polling trendline shows them enjoying a resurgence in support down the stretch of the campaign, the PSC's decreased lead might force them into coalition with the Greens, or even more intriguing, a grand coalition with the FPD.

Reformation of the country's electoral and political system

Chiovitti has repeatedly told the media his PSC will spearhead the new framework to reconfigure Pacitalia's aged and widely-panned political and electoral system, whether it is in coalition or majority. He has been silent on whether or not he supports the use of military force to quell the conflict emerging between the SDL and the SAAS in the Atlantian Oceanian region. As of 4th October, 2006, Chiovitti says he supports Consigliera Serodini's call for a swift, peaceful end to what is widely perceived as an unnecessary conflict that will kill millions and likely displace many more.

Prime Ministers of Pacitalia

Fernando Chiovitti

Contents

Early life

Telecommunications career and his rise to the corporate echelon

Political career

Rising status as a politician

Leadership of the PSC

The FPD/Sorantanali scandal

Reformation of the country's electoral and political system

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