Jole Santelli

Jole Santelli (28 December 1968 – 15 October 2020) was an Italian politician.

A member of the centre-right party Forza Italia, she was the President of Calabria from 17 February 2020 until her death eight months later.

Biography

After graduating in Law at the Sapienza University of Rome, Santelli became a lawyer. She later joined Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right party Forza Italia, and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time at the 2001 Italian general election.

From 2001 to 2006 Santelli was undersecretary at the Ministry of Justice in the Berlusconi II and the Berlusconi III cabinets. She was elected to the Chamber of Deputies again in the 2006, the 2008 and the 2013 general elections. From May to December 2013 Santelli was undersecretary at the Ministry of Labour in the Letta Cabinet, until Forza Italia withdrew its support from the government.

Since 2013 Santelli has been the regional coordinator of Forza Italia in Calabria and has been deputy mayor of Cosenza from 2016 to 2019. In the 2018 general elections Santelli was elected one more time to the Chamber of Deputies.

In December 2019 she became the centre-right candidate for President of Calabria at the 2020 Calabrian regional election, which she won with around 55% of votes.

Santelli died on October 15, 2020, at the age of 51, following a long battle with cancer.