Adriana Poli Bortone

Born in Lecce, she became Assistant lecturer in Latin literature at the University of Lecce in 1965. In 1985, she became an associate professor of the same subject. From 1967 to 1998, she was a member of the Lecce Municipal Council and, from 1981 to 1990, National secretary for women of the Italian Social Movement. From 1990 to 2000, she was also a member of the national executive of MSI and, subsequently, the National Alliance. Poli Bortone was elected for the first time to the Chamber of Deputies in 1983, and in 1994, she was appointed for a month as Vice President of the Chamber. In 1994, she also served as Agriculture Minister in the Berlusconi I Cabinet. In 1998, she was elected mayor of Lecce and re-confirmed in 2002.

In the 1999 European Parliament election, Poli Bortone was elected MEP with AN, while in the 2008 general election, she was elected to the Senate with The People of Freedom. In 2009, she left the PdL to find her party, I the South. In the 2013 general election, she was a candidate for the Senate in Apulia with Great South but wasn't re-elected. In 2014, Poli Bortone joined Brothers of Italy,^[3] but left the party in 2015, when Forza Italia nominated her for the regional election in Apulia, while FdI decided to support the candidacy of Francesco Schittulli. Finally, she gained 14% of the votes and wasn't elected to the Regional Council. Subsequently, on 29 February 2016, she declared her intention to join Forza Italia.^[4]

In 2019, Poli Bortone left Forza Italia and joined the neo-fascist party Tricolour Flame.^[5] In 2022 she switched to Italexit, a Eurosceptic party led by journalist Gianluigi Paragone.^[6]