In the 2006 Italian general election, she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the National Alliance (AN), where she became its youngest ever vice-president.[12] In the same year, she started to work as a journalist.[13] In 2008, she was appointed Minister of Youth in the Berlusconi IV Cabinet, a position she held until 16 November 2011, when the prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi was forced to resign as the prime minister amid a financial crisis and public protests.[14] She was the youngest-ever minister in the history of united Italy.[15]