Oscar Giannino

Oscar Fulvio Giannino (born 1 September 1961) is an Italian journalist and politician. A member of the Liberal Democratic Alliance for Italy (Alleanza Liberaldemocratica per l'Italia, ALI) since 2013, he is the former president of the free-market-oriented Stop the Decline (Fermare il Declino, FiD) party.

Biography
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 (Partito Repubblicano Italiano, PRI). He was the national secretary (segretario nazionale) of the party's youth wing from 1984 to 1987, and was the party's spokesperson (portavoce) from 1987 to 1994. From 2005 to 2009, he was a member of the Liberal Reformers (Riformatori Liberali, RL). In March 2012, he was a speaker at the national congress of the Grand Orient of Italy in Rimini.

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 (presidente del Consiglio dei ministri) for the 2013 Italian general election. He stepped down from FiD's presidency (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. 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.