Democratic Party

 

Democratic Party Partito Democratico
Leader	Walter Veltroni
Coalition	The Union
Political ideology	Social democracy, Social liberalism, Christian Left
International affiliation	not yet decided
European affiliation	not yet decided
European Parliament Group	not yet decided
Membership	unknown
Website	http://www.partitodemocratico.it
See also	Politics of Italy Political parties in Italy Elections in Italy

The Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, PD) is an Italian political party, founded on 14 October 2007.

It was founded on 2007 as merger of various moderate left-wing and centre-wing parties which were part of the L'Unione coalition in the 2006 general election. Its core consists of the social-democratic Democrats of the Left and the left-leaning centrist Democracy is Freedom – Daisy, as well as other minor parties and movements such as Southern Democratic Party, Sardinia Project, Democratic Republicans, Middle-of-the-Road Italy and Reformist Alliance.

The party leader, elected on October 14, 2007 in an open election, is former Democrats of the Left leader Walter Veltroni, currently in charge as Mayor of Rome.

History

Olive Tree

In the early 1990s, following Tangentopoli, the end of the so-called "Italian First Republic" and the disbandment of the Italian Communist Party, a process started in order to join the moderate left-wing forces of Italian politics to a single political entity. This process caused the entering of Romano Prodi into national politics and the creation of the centre-left Olive Tree coalition that won the 1996 general election. Later steps brought in 1998 the Democratic Party of the Left to give up every single communist legacy and embrace democratic socialism, thus giving birth to the Democrats of the Left.

Democracy is Freedom

In 1998, contemporarily with the democratic-socialist change inside the DS, a new party, The Democrats (I Democratici), was launched by Romano Prodi, with a reformist left-of-centre platform based on social liberalism, social democracy and Christian democracy. Popular-UDEUR, which were initially part of the Daisy, later abandoned the alliance, whereas The Democrats merged with the Italian People's Party and Italian Renewal, both two Christian democratic left-of-centre parties, to found the Daisy in 2002.

The Olive Tree list

In the summer of 2003, Romano Prodi suggested the centre-left forces to participate in the 2004 European parliamentary election with a common list. Whereas the Popular-UDEUR and the radical left parties refused the offer, four parties accepted it: Democrats of the Left, The Daisy, Italian Democratic Socialists and European Republican Movement successively founded a common list called Uniti nell'Ulivo (United in the Olive Tree) which ran in the election, obtaining 31.1% of national votes. The project was later abandoned in 2006 by the Italian Democratic Socialists, which preferred to run in a ticket wit the Italian Radicals known as Rose in the Fist. In the 2006 election, the Olive Tree list ran only in the Chamber of Deputies, obtaining 31.2% of national votes, more than the total of the percentage votes obtained by the single three parties in the Senate.

Road to the first convention

The 2006 election result, together with the success of the 2005 centre-left primary election, in which over four million voters formally endorsed Prodi as PM candidate, gave a push to the project of a unified centre-left reformist party. Since then, Francesco Rutelli and Piero Fassino, party leaders of Daisy and Democrats of the Left, scheduled their party conventions for April 2006 in order to formally approve the merger. On February 2007, a manifesto for the party, written by twelve centre-left "sages", was announced. On April 19, 2007, Democrats of the Left's national convention started in Florence; it is likely to be the last, since approximately 75% of the Democrats of the Left members already voted in support of party secretary Fassino's motion in favour of founding the Democratic Party as soon as possible; the left-wing minority, headed by minister Fabio Mussi and opposed to the project, obtained circa 15% of the support within the party. A third motion, presented by Gavino Angius and supportive of the Democratic Party only within the Party of European Socialists, obtained 10% of votes.

During and following the Democrats of the Left national convention, both Mussi and Angius announced their intention not to join the Democratic Party; as they announced, it seems possible they would look forward to build a new left-wing socialist movement together with parties that are not involved in the Democratic Party project, such as Communist Refoundation Party, Federation of the Greens and Party of Italian Communists.

On May 22, 2007 the list of members of the Organizing Committee of the Democratic Party was announced: it features 45 politicians, mainly from DL and DS, but also including figures such as Middle-of-the-Road Italy leader Marco Follini, Abruzzo regional president and leading member of the Italian Democratic Socialists Ottaviano Del Turco, Luciana Sbarbati, Renato Soru and Giuliano Amato.^[1] On June 18 the organizing committee met to decide the rules for the primary election of the 2,400 members of the Constituting Assembly. Prodi announced each voter will choose between a number of lists, each of them associated with a candidate leader; the assembly will then elect the first leader in the October 14 founding convention. At least one hundred signatures will be necessary for each list in order to run in the election.^[2]

Leadership race

Main article: Democratic Party (Italy) leadership election, 2007

All candidates interested in running for the Democratic Party leadership must present at least 2,000 valid signatures not later than July 30, 2007. All candidates must also be associated with the Democratic Party project, as either members of the political subjects forming it or with no party association at all.

On the July 30 deadline, a total of ten candidates officially registered their candidacy: Walter Veltroni, Rosy Bindi, Enrico Letta, Furio Colombo, Marco Pannella, Antonio Di Pietro, Mario Adinolfi, Pier Giorgio Gawronski, Jacopo Gavazzoli Schettini, Lucio Cangini and Amerigo Rutigliano. Of these, Pannella and Di Pietro were stopped because of their involvement in external parties, whereas Cangini and Rutigliano did not manage to present the necessary 2,000 valid signatures for the 9pm deadline, and Colombo's candidacy was instead made into hiatus in order to give him 48 additional hours to integrate the required documentation; Colombo later decided to retire his candidacy citing his impossibility to fit with all the requirements.^[3] All rejected candidates had the chance against the decision in 48 hours' time,^[4] with Pannella and Rutigliano being the only two candidates to appeal against it.^[5] Both were rejected on 3 August.^[6]

All opinions polls taken since then predicted a clear victory for Veltroni in the election, with results ranging from 65% to 75% circa.^[7][8][9] Such polls proved to be true on October 14, 2007 when Veltroni was elected leader with circa 75% of the national votes in an open primary attended by over three million voters.^[10]

Issues

The foundation of the Democratic Party is called into question by various cases of infighting among the prospective members of the new party; the discussion on which European political party to join also seems to be far from solved, with some parties being in favour of the Party of European Socialists (e.g. the Democrats of the Left) and some in favour of the European Democratic Party (e.g. Democracy is Freedom – Daisy).

Popular support

Public support for the new party has been quoted as being between 27.5%^[11] and 35%.^[12]

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

The term Partito Democratico was first used in the Regional Council of Veneto, where the Democrats of the Left and Daisy form a joint parliamentary group called L'Ulivo – Partito Democratico Veneto (Olive Tree – Venetian Democratic Party).^[13]

Leadership

• Secretary: Walter Veltroni (2007–...)
• President: Romano Prodi (2007–...)

See also

• Reformism
• Historic Compromise
• The Olive Tree
• Democrats of the Left
• Democracy is Freedom – Daisy

References

External links

• Official website
• The party "manifesto"
• Federazione delle Associazioni per il Partito Democratico
• Associazione della Sinistra per il Partito Democratico
• Libertà e Giustizia

Political parties in Italy (complete version, historical parties)
The Union	Democratic Party – Communist Refoundation Party – Democratic Left Minor: Party of Italian Communists – Italy of Values – Federation of the Greens – UDEUR Populars – Italian Democratic Socialists – Italian Radicals Micro: Liberal Democrats – Democratic Union – Italian Democratic Socialist Party – United Consumers Regional: South Tyrolean People's Party – Trentino Tyrolean Autonomist Party – Valdotanian Renewal
House of Freedoms	Forza Italia – National Alliance – Union of Christian and Centre Democrats – Lega Nord Minor: The Right – Christian Democracy for the Autonomies – Movement for Autonomy – Pensioners' Party – Tricolour Flame – Social Action Micro: Italian Republican Party – Liberal Reformers – New Italian Socialist Party – Italians in the World Regional: Veneto for the EPP – Sardinian Reformers – Sardinian People's Party – Sardinian Democratic Union – New Sicily
Others	Micro: Italian Associations in South America – Socialist Party Regional: Valdotanian Union – Edelweiss Aosta Valley – Autonomist Federation – Union for South Tyrol – The Libertarians – North-East Project – Sardinian Action Party Complete list
- List of political parties - Politics of Italy

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