Giuseppe Alessi

Giuseppe Alessi
1st and 3rd President of Sicily
In office 30 May 1947 – 13 June 1949
Preceded by	Office created (Giovanni Selvaggi as High Commissary)
Succeeded by	Franco Restivo
In office 5 June 1955 – 4 April 1956
Preceded by	Franco Restivo
Succeeded by	Giuseppe La Loggia
Member of the Chamber
In office 27 May 1968 – 24 May 1972
Constituency	Palermo
Member of the Senate
In office 17 May 1963 – 4 June 1968
Constituency	Piazza Armerina
Personal details
Born	(1905-10-29)29 October 1905 San Cataldo, Sicily, Kingdom of Italy
Died	13 July 2009(2009-07-13) (aged 103) Palermo, Sicily, Italy
Political party	Italian People's Party (1921–1926) Christian Democracy (1943–1994) Rebirth of Christian Democracy (1997–2002) Christian Democracy (2002–2009)
Alma mater	University of Palermo
Profession	Lawyer, politician

Giuseppe Alessi (29 October 1905 – 13 July 2009) was an Italian politician.

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Alessi was born in San Cataldo, Caltanissetta, Sicily. He was one of the founding members of the Christian Democratic (Democrazia Cristiana) party on the island and became the first elected President of the Regional Government of Sicily. He was a member of the reform wing of the DC. From 1968-72, he was a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

Journalist Alexander Stille interviewed Alessi in the 1990s and asked him about the relations between the Christian Democrats and the Mafia: "It happened this way. Some people in the Christian Democratic Party approached the separatists, whose backbone were these Mafia bosses and invited them to join the national parties ... [T]he Mafiosi were looking for the road to power, to secure the support they needed for their economic affairs. If the mayor was Republican, they became Republican, if he was Socialist, they were Socialist, if he was Christian Democrat they became Christian Democrat." Alessi defended them as a necessary evil of the Cold War period: "The Christian Democrats subordinated their ideals for a supreme interest of national importance: saving the democratic state. The victory of Communism would have meant Italy ended up behind the Iron Curtain."

Alessi's justification of his party's dealings with the Mafia is based on a romantic view of the Mafia of the 1940s and 1950s: "They weren't criminals, they were local potentates, neighbourhood bosses, proud men of prestige. Their crimes were basically economic - fraud, forgery, illegal appropriation of property - but they disliked real crime."^[1]

Alessi died in Palermo, aged 103, on 13 July 2009.

•  Italy: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (10 may 1974)^[2]

• "Giuseppe Alessi. Il primo presidente", Articolo da “Il venerdì” di La Repubblica, 22 June 2007 (in Italian)
• Announcement of Giuseppe Alessi's 103rd birthday (in Italian) (in Italian)
• Obituary (in Italian) (in Italian)