Oscar Giannino

Giannino was born in Turin, the capital city of the Italian region of Piedmont. He soon started his career as journalist. In 1984, he became a member of the national leadership of the Italian Republican Party (Italian: Partito Repubblicano Italiano, PRI). He was the national secretary (Italian: segretario nazionale) of the party's youth wing from 1984 to 1987, and was the party's spokesperson (Italian: portavoce) from 1987 to 1994. From 2005 to 2009, he was a member of the Liberal Reformers (Italian: Riformatori Liberali, RL). In March 2012, he was a speaker at the national congress of the Grand Orient of Italy in Rimini.^[1][2]

In August 2012, Giannino founded the Stop the Decline party, and in December he announced that he would run to become Prime Minister of Italy (Italian: presidente del Consiglio dei ministri) for the 2013 Italian general election. He stepped down from FiD's presidency (Italian: capo della forza politica) after it was discovered that he had fabricated his résumé by adding false academic claims, such as a law degree in Italy and a master's degree in corporate finance and public finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.^[3] The deception was discovered by the party co-founder and Giannino's colleague, Luigi Zingales, who was professor at the Booth School of Business and left the political association.^[4]