The family of her father (Roberto[7]) originated from the hamlet of Vaglie in the comune ofLigonchio and she is a distant cousin through her paternal grandfather of the singerIva Zanicchi.[8][9][10] Francesco Ceccardi, brother of her paternal grandfather, died in the hamlet ofBusana on theApennine Mountains, killed by the army of theItalian Social Republic in January 1945 and is locally honored by a way-side cross with a plaque.[11][12]
Her family was left-wing but her parents moved their vote to the Northern League in the 1990s.[13]
She graduated at classical high school and she later enrolled at Law School at theUniversity of Pisa, where she began her political activity as student representative.[14] She took all the exams but never graduated.[15]
She was elected at the municipal council of Cascina in 2011 and she participated as a regular guest in the political talk showAnnouno on the national channelLA7.[16]
During the2016 Italian local elections she obtained at the Cascina mayoral election 28.4% in the first round and 50.3% in the run-off, while her party got 21.3%.[18][19] Immigration was a core topic of the campaign.[13]
At the time her victory interrupted 70 years of left-wing local leadership,[20][4][21] and Cascina became the first large municipality won byLega Nord Toscana in the region and the second in general afterBagni di Lucca in the 1990s.[22] in a region which is a traditional left stronghold.[13] She was also the only member of Lega Nord elected mayor in the whole region[23] before Siena, Pisa and Massa followed suit in theJune 2018 local elections.[24]
Susanna Ceccardi's role was considered crucial for the elections in the local constituencies of herassessorsEdoardo Ziello and Rosellina Sbrana in March 2018 to the Italian Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, respectively, and for the victory of the right-wing candidateMichele Conti at the mayoral election in the bigger neighboringcomune of Pisa a few months laters in the2018 Italian local elections.[5] In Autumn 2018 she was appointed special commissioner (head) of the party in Tuscany.[25]
Susanna Ceccardi with Matteo Salvini in May 2019 at an election rally for the following European and municipal elections, inMontecatini Terme.
In April 2019, she became an official candidate for her party at the2019 European Parliament election in Italy[28][29][30] She was elected with 48,239 preferences.[31] becoming the youngest MEP of her party.[15] Her former deputy Dario Rollo became mayor after she accepted her role of MEP.[6]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic, she organized with party colleaguesGian Marco Centinaio (formerminister of agriculture) and Gianna Gambaccini (a doctor and localassessore in Pisa) a "rescue expedition" traveling by bus from Italy to Barcelona where they collected 46 Italian citizens (mostly from Tuscany[32]). blocked in the Canary Islands with no direct flight to Italy because of the increasing local travel restrictions and reduction of flights and routes.[33][34][35] The tourists were visited by Gambaccini before the start of the travel, and equipped with protective masks.[36][37]
Ceccardi stated she undertook the initiative after not receiving specific reply from the Italian authorities.[33] TheItalian Minister of Foreign AffairsLuigi Di Maio later asked the rescue mission to be stopped when the bus was already in France.
The initiative was criticized by the left parties as unnecessary, but also by other local politicians ofBrothers of Italy.[38][39]
Eugenio Giani with Susanna Ceccardi (top candidates for the upcoming regional elections) at the July 2020 electoral debate in the main building ofLa Nazione in Florence.[40]
After the good performance of the possible allied parties at the 2019 European elections, Ceccardi declared herself as a possible candidate for thepresident of Tuscany at the incoming regional elections of 2020.[41] However, possible allies criticized the weak performance of the center-right coalition at the runoff votings of the 2019 municipal elections under her strategical leadership[42] and criticisms of her activism emerged also inside her own party.[17]
In March 2020, Ceccardi was proposed as candidate for the center-right coalition to the2020 Tuscan regional election.[34][43] The candidature was formalized for the whole center-right coalition in June 2020, when the date of the election was confirmed after the COVID-19 lockdown.[44]
She has been described as an example of younger Italian politicians supporting a more critical view of theEuropean Union especially compared with the older right-wing officeholders of the previous decades.[45]
In 2016, she gavehonorary citizenship toMagdi Cristiano Allam, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity and is noted for his criticism of Islamic extremism.[23] She opposes the construction ofmosques and, in exchange for the celebration of theEid al-Fitr in a public space by the local Senegalese community, she required that they "firmly condemned" all acts of violence induced byIslamic fundamentalism.[46] Ceccardi consider that "regulating immigration is a moderate position"[20]
In March 2019, she made public that she is expecting a baby with her partner Andrea Barabotti,[13][48] a member of the Lega from Massa,[49] due in September 2019.[50][10] She expressed the possibility to name her future daughter Kinzica afterKinzica de' Sismondi, a medieval heroine who according to the legend it is said to have defended the town of Pisa from the invasion of theSaracens.[30][10] Kinzika was born in Pisa on 28 September.[49]
^Matteo Salvini, who at time was only leader of the Northern League, gave himself news of her victory to the national audience during the television late night showPorta a Porta.[5]
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List of members ofIdentity and Democracy (2019–2024)
