Maurizio Martina

On 7 July he was elected Secretary by the party's assembly, with the aim of bringing the PD toward new leadership election in early 2019, before the European election.

In the 2018 election, the centre-left coalition arrived third behind the centre-right alliance, in which Matteo Salvini's League was the main political force, and the Five Star Movement of Luigi Di Maio finished second. On 5 March, Renzi announced that the PD will be in opposition during this legislature and he will resign as secretary when a new cabinet will be formed. Renzi officially resigned on 12 March during PD's national directorate, and his deputy secretary Martina was appointed acting leader.

On 23 April 2018, after Elisabetta Casellati, President of the Senate, failed to form a cabinet combining the M5S and the centre-right, President Sergio Mattarella gave an exploratory mandate to the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Roberto Fico, to try to create a political agreement between the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party.

In February 2017 the incumbent secretary Matteo Renzi announced an electoral ticket with Martina for the Democratic leadership election in April; Martina would become Deputy Secretary and would probably lead the party if Renzi becomes Prime Minister again. Renzi won by a landslide and Martina was appointed new Deputy Secretary on 7 May.

On 12 December 2016, when Renzi resigned as Prime Minister after the constitutional referendum, Martina was confirmed as Agriculture Minister by the new Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

In 2015 Martina founded Left is Change, a left-wing social-democratic faction within the PD, allied with the centrist ones led by Matteo Renzi and Dario Franceschini.

During his tenure as Minister of Agriculture, various measures have been developed and approved in favor of youth employment in agriculture, bureaucratic simplification for businesses, generational turnover and internationalization of enterprises. Furthermore, during his mandate, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which has been in force since 1 January 2015, has been definitively approved.

He served as Minister of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies since 22 February 2014, in the governments of Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni. On 7 May 2017, he was elected Deputy Secretary of the Democratic Party. Martina resigned as Agriculture Minister and took over as acting Secretary of the Democratic Party, after Matteo Renzi resigned following a poor election showing in 2018.

On 22 February 2014, when the new secretary of the PD, Matteo Renzi, forced Letta to resign, becoming the new Prime Minister, he appointed Martina Minister of Agriculture.

In 2013 he was appointed undersecretary to the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, in the government of Enrico Letta.

In 2007 he joined the new-founded Democratic Party and in 2009 he was appointed Responsible for Agriculture in the new secretariat led by Pier Luigi Bersani.

In 1994 he joined the Students' Movement, a left-wing organization, and in 1999 he was elected to the city council of Mornico al Serio for the Democrats of the Left (DS). In the early 2000s he became a leading member of the Youth Left, the youth wing of the DS.

Maurizio Martina (born 9 September 1978) is an Italian politician, Member of the Chamber of Deputies, who served as Secretary of the Democratic Party from March to November 2018, being appointed after the general election of 2018.

Maurizio Martina was born in Calcinate, near Bergamo, in 1978. He grew up in a middle-class working family, he attended the Agricultural Institute and later he graduated in political science at the University of Macerata.