. Member of the
Forza Italia political movement of
Silvio Berlusconi since its foundation in 1994, during the same year she became
chairperson of the "Azzurri" club in
Desenzano del Garda settling the first representation of Forza Italia in the
Province of Brescia. In 1998, she was the first elected in the administrative poll in
Desenzano del Garda and became the president of the city council until 2000, in which year a motion of no confidence against her eventually passed. Gelmini passed her
bar exam in 2001 in
Reggio Calabria, far away from her home town and the university where she graduated, as the academic standards in that city were low and the pass rate suspiciously high. In 2002, she was elected as a councillor of the Province of Brescia. During her term in office, she devised the "
Piano Territoriale di Coordinamento Provinciale", by virtue of which the environmentally protected areas of
Parco della rocca e del sasso di Manerba,
Parco delle colline di Brescia and
Parco del lago Moro were established. In 2005, she was elected as a member of the regional council of
Lombardy, resulting in the most voted candidate among the Lombard constituencies. After this electoral success, she became
Forza Italia's political chief in
Lombardy, becoming a coordinatore regionale. In 2006, Mariastella Gelmini was elected as a member of the
Chamber of Deputies, the
lower house of the
Italian Parliament. On 18 November 2007, she was in Piazza San Babila in
Milan when Silvio Berlusconi announced the birth of
The People of Freedom political movement, and subsequently she became a member of the founding committee of the party. Since 2008, she has served in the Italian Government as Minister of Education in the
Berlusconi IV Cabinet. In the same year, she was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies. On 20 July 2022, she left Forza Italia after the confidence vote for the Draghi government failed to pass and the party chose to abstain. ==Critics==