Giovanni Giolitti

**Giovanni Giolitti** (October 27, 1854 – April 7, 1940) was an Isgardian statesman who served as the second president of Isgardia from July 27, 1915 until July 27, 1921, and as prime minister of Isgardia briefly between July 27, 1939 and April 7, 1940. Giolitti was the founder of the Democratic party, which would later become a major Isgardian party. Giolitti was also the first president to only serve one term, and holds the record for the most elections contested at six, as well as the most election defeats at five.

Born in the region of Piedmont in 1854, Giovanni Giolitti began his career as a civil servant under the recently unified Kingdom of Isgardia within the treasury department, and presided over the treasury during the Banca Romana financial scandal in 1893, when the Banca Romana abruptly went bankrupt and threatened to bring much of the Isgardian economy with it. As a republican wave of support began to emerge in southern Isgardia in the 1890s, Giolitti defected from the treasury to become a senior figure within the Republican Governance Body, and led the organisation between 1899 and 1902, when media proprietor Sidney Sonnino was appointed as leader. Under Sonnino's leadership of the RGB, Giolitti was assigned to leading negotiations with King Umberto over the future of the Isgardian state; however, Giolitti was repeatedly undermined by Sonnino's populist actions, and an animosity began to emerge between the two republican leaders.

Following the establishment of the Republic of Isgardia in 1903, Giovanni Giolitti was appointed as finance advisor in President Sidney Sonnino's administration and sought to implement minor reforms to the banking system in order to gain credit to fund the new republic's financial plans. Following a dispute over the extent of banking reform, Giolitti resigned as financial advisor in August 1905 and became a leading critic of Sonnino's presidency. In February 1906, Giolitti formed the Democratic party as a platform for opposition to the Sonnino administration, becoming the first political party to form under the republic. Giolitti and the Democratic party contested the 1909 presidential election and, despite ultimately loosing, expanded its voter base significantly. The Democratic party continued in opposition until the 1915 presidential election, when Giolitti defeated President Sidney Sonnino amid an economic collapse.

During his presidency, Giovanni Giolitti sought to restore the economic situation of the Republic of Isgardia and implemented a series of credit reforms to give the banks increased autonomy from the government, as well as imposing austerity policies to halt government borrowing. At the same time, Giolitti sought to reform the Isgardian constitution to provide increased democratic protections as part of a wider bid to restore market confidence in the system; as part of this, Giolitti imposed a two term limit for the presidency and established the office of prime minister as a presidential appointment, with both reforms coming into force immediately upon the beginning of the 1921-27 presidential term. The political compromises required to implement these constitutional changes greatly damaged President Giolitti, and empowered a growing right wing nationalist sentiment in the nation. Giolitti contested the 1921 presidential election but lost to National Socialist leader Luigi Luzzatti after former president Sidney Sonnino's candidacy split the moderate vote.

In his later life, Giolitti continued as leader of the Democratic party and stood in the 1927, 1933, and 1939 presidential elections as the main opposition candidate to the dominant National Socialist party. In the aftermath of the 1939 presidential election, President Vittorio Orlando appointed Giolitti to the office of prime minister in an attempt to build a strong cross-party government in the face of the radical Revolutionary party led by Benito Mussolini. In April 1940, Giovanni Giolitti was killed during Mussolini's coup d'état, and was buried in an unmarked grave outside of Rome.