Antonio Salandra

**Antonio Salandra** (August 13, 1880 – May 7, 1938) was an Isgardian politician and economist who served as the fourth president of Isgardia from July 27, 1933 until his assassination on May 7, 1938, becoming the first Isgardian president to die in office. Salandra also served as the first prime minister of Isgardia from 1921 until 1933, and was the deputy leader of the National Socialist party from 1916 until 1938.

Born in Troia in 1880, Antonio Salandra graduated from the University of Naples in 1905 and became instructor, and later professor, of administrative law at the University of Rome. Following the formation of the Nationalist Socialist party under the leadership of Luigi Luzzatti, Salandra joined the organisation and was appointed as the party's deputy leader. In 1921, Antonio Salandra was appointed as prime minister of Isgardia following Luzzatti's presidential election victory; as the deputy to Luzzatti, prime minister Salandra became responsible for implementing the government's radical policy agenda. In August 1921, following Franz Joseph's coup d'état in the Republic of Dunsteen, Salandra cut off all ties with the Dunsteenian government and began amassing the Isgardian armed forces along the Dunsteenian border in preparation for war between the two states; however, the death of Joseph and the election of the moderate Walter Simons in 1922 prevented initial conflict between the two states. However, tensions once again rose in 1927 with the election of Raymond Poincare as president of Dunsteen, and Salandra led the remobilisation of the Isgardian armed forces to the border once again, resulting in the construction of the Poincare Line by Dunsteen as a protective defence between the two states. Following President Luigi Luzzatti's re-election the same year, Antonio Salandra led the government's moves to backslide on and undermine the democratic norms of the Republic of Isgardia. In 1933, President Luzzatti declined to stand for a third term, instead nominating Salandra as the National Socialist party's presidential candidate.

During his presidency, Antonio Salandra came under increasing pressure from the radical far right Revolutionary Nationalists under the leadership of Benito Mussolini who pressed the government to go further and more forcefully with its economic and social reforms. In a bid to eradicate the Revolutionary Nationalist Front, President Salandra initiated the establishment of martial law in the southern provinces of Isgardia, only furthering discontent in the region and expanding the forces of Mussolini's RNF. Having banned the RNF as an organisation, Mussolini responded by forming the Isgardian Revolutionary Party as a faux democratic entity, and started to contest elections in the country, winning a heavy majority in the south. Internationally, Salandra's regime had grown increasingly unpopular by 1937 as Isgardian forces regularly committed state sponsored piracy in the Mediterranean, resulting in several rival states allocating funding towards Mussolini's rebel forces. On May 7, 1938, President Antonio Salandra was assassinated by members of the Revolutionary party, resulting in prime minister Vittorio Orlando ascending to the presidency the same day. Salandra's assassination marked the beginning of the end of the National Socialist regime in Isgardia, which would collapse two years later in 1940