Luis Di Giacomo (born 29 April 1954) is an

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

psychiatrist and politician, currently serving as a National Deputy elected in Río Negro. A member of the regionalist

Together We Are Río Negro Together We Are Río Negro (; JSRN) is a provincial political party in the Río Negro Province of Argentina. It was formed in 2015 as an electoral coalition to back the candidacy to the governorship of incumbent Alberto Weretilneck; it was later ...

party, Di Giacomo was elected in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

and currently sits in (and presides) the Provincias Unidas inter-bloc. Di Giacomo previously served as Minister of Government of Río Negro from 2012 to 2019, during the governorship of

Alberto Weretilneck Alberto Weretilneck (born 11 October 1962) is an Argentine politician currently serving as Senator for Río Negro Province. Previously, from 2012 to 2019, he was the province's governor. Biography Born in El Bolsón, Río Negro, he joined the ...

. Prior to that, he was a member of the Provincial Legislature of Río Negro from 2003 to 2007, and a member of the City Council of

General Roca A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...

on numerous occasions.

Early life and career

Di Giacomo was born on 29 April 1954 in

Avellaneda Avellaneda (, ) is a port city in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the seat of the Avellaneda Partido, whose population was 342,677 as per the . Avellaneda is located within the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area, and is connected ...

, in the

Greater Buenos Aires Greater Buenos Aires ( es, Gran Buenos Aires, GBA), also known as the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area ( es, Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires, AMBA), refers to the urban agglomeration comprising the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and the adjac ...

, to

Italian immigrant Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

parents. He studied medicine at the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires ( es, Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one o ...

, graduating in 1978, and specialized in psychiatry at the Provincial Public Health Council of

Río Negro Province Río Negro (, ''Black River'') is a province of Argentina, located in northern Patagonia. Neighboring provinces are from the south clockwise Chubut, Neuquén, Mendoza, La Pampa and Buenos Aires. To the east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Its capit ...

. Di Giacomo worked as a medical professional at the Centro Neurológico LEMNOS in

General Roca, Río Negro General Roca is a city in the northeast of the Argentine province of Río Negro, northern Patagonia. It was founded on September 1, 1879, by Colonel Lorenzo Vintter, on the order of War Minister Julio A. Roca, during the Conquest of the Desert ...

, and at the Fundación Confluencia Patagónica para la Salud. In addition, he has taught postgraduate courses on cognitive therapies at the

National University of La Plata The La Plata National University ( es, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, UNLP) is one of the most important Argentine national universities and the biggest one situated in the city of La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires Province. It has over 9 ...

. Di Giacomo has lived in General Roca since the 1980s. He is married and has four children.

Political career

Di Giacomo has been politically active since the last military dictatorship; his political activism began in the

Intransigent Party The Intransigent Party ( es, Partido Intransigente) is a leftist political party in Argentina, founded in 1963 by Oscar Alende. Its membership came from the Intransigent Radical Civic Union, one of the two factions of the Radical Civic Union. Hi ...

(PI). He was elected president of the Río Negro chapter of the PI in 1988. Later, in 1992, he became a founding member of the Patagonian People's Movement (MPP), and co-wrote the new party's official charter. In 1995, Di Giacomo was elected to the

City Council, serving in the position until 1999. In 2003, he was elected to the Provincial Legislature, as part of the Broad Front party list. In 2007, he was re-elected to the City Council as part of the

Front for Victory The Front for Victory ( es, Frente para la Victoria, FPV) was a centre-left Peronist electoral alliance in Argentina, and is formally a faction of the Justicialist Party. Former presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wer ...

. From 2011 to 2012, he was President of the General Roca City Council. In 2012, Governor

appointed Di Giacomo as the new Minister of Government of the province, succeeding Hugo Lastra, who became Secretary General of Governance. Di Giacomo remained in the position after the re-election of Weretilneck in 2015. That year, Di Giacomo became a co-founder of '' Juntos Somos Río Negro'', (JSRN, "Together We Are Río Negro") a regionalist political party based on the electoral coalition that had led Weretilneck to re-election.

National Deputy

In the 2019 legislative election, Di Giacomo ran in the JSRN list to the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

in Río Negro as the first candidate. The JSRN list was the second-most voted, with 32.05% of the vote, and Di Giacomo was the only candidate in the list to be elected. He was sworn in on 4 December 2019. As the only deputy from JSRN, he presided the single-member JSRN

bloc Bloc may refer to: Government and politics * Political bloc, a coalition of political parties * Trade bloc, a type of intergovernmental agreement * Voting bloc, a group of voters voting together Other uses * Bloc (code school), an educational we ...

in the Chamber during the 2019–2021 legislative term, and formed part of the "Unidad Federal" inter-bloc, presided by José Luis Ramón. As a national deputy, Di Giacomo presided the parliamentary commission on Addictions Prevention and Drug-trafficking control, and formed part of the commissions on Foreign Affairs, Small and Medium-sized Companies, and Regional Economies and Development. He was also a supporter of the 2020 Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy bill, which legalized abortion in Argentina. Following the 2021 legislative election, the Unidad Federal inter-bloc was dissolved, and instead a new bloc, called "Provincias Unidas", was formed between members of regional parties not aligned with either the national government or the

Juntos por el Cambio ( en, Together for Change) is a centre-right political coalition in Argentina. It was created in 2015 as Cambiemos ( en, Let's Change), and renamed in 2019. It is composed of Republican Proposal, Radical Civic Union, Civic Coalition ARI and U ...

opposition. JSRN, which elected another deputy in the 2021 election, formed part of the bloc alongside

Misiones Misiones (, ''Missions'') is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes P ...

' FRC and

Neuquén Neuquén (; arn, Nehuenken) is the capital city of the Argentine province of Neuquén and of the Confluencia Department, located in the east of the province. It occupies a strip of land west of the confluence of the Limay and Neuquén rivers w ...

's MPN. Di Giacomo was elected to be the five-member inter-bloc's president.

References

External links

Profile on the official website of the Chamber of Deputies
(in Spanish) * {{DEFAULTSORT:DiGiacomo, Luis Living people 1954 births People from Avellaneda Partido People from General Roca Argentine people of Italian descent Argentine psychiatrists Members of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies elected in Río Negro Members of the Legislature of Río Negro Broad Front (Argentina) politicians University of Buenos Aires alumni Academic staff of the National University of La Plata 20th-century Argentine politicians 21st-century Argentine politicians