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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	www.partitodemocratico.it
See also	Politics of Italy Political parties in Italy Elections in Italy

The Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, PD) is a centre-left political party in Italy.

Its leader is Walter Veltroni, Deputy-Prime Minister and Culture Minister in 1996–1998, leader of the Democrats of the Left in 1998–2001 and Mayor of Rome since 2001.

It was founded on 14 October 2007 as merger of various left-wing and centrist parties which were part of the The Union in the 2006 general election. The parties which merged in the new party were:

• Democrats of the Left (social-democratic);
• Democracy is Freedom – Daisy (centrist);
• Southern Democratic Party (centrist);
• Sardinia Project (centrist);
• European Republicans Movement (social-liberal);
• Democratic Republicans (social-liberal);
• Middle-of-the-Road Italy (christian-democratic);
• Reformist Alliance (social-democratic).

Contents 1 History 1.1 The Olive Tree coalition 1.2 The Olive Tree list 1.3 Road the new party 1.4 Leadership race 2 Issues 3 Popular support 4 Trivia 5 Leadership 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

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 (formerly close to left-wing of Christian Democracy) into national politics and the creation of the The Olive Tree, a centre-left coalition including: the Democratic Party of the Left, the Italian People's Party, the Federation of the Greens, Italian Renewal, the Italian Socialists, Democratic Union. The coalition, allied with the Communist Refoundation Party, won the 1996 general election.

Later steps brought the Democratic Party of the Left to transform into the Democrats of the Left, with the merge of other centre-left parties, in 1998 and centrists in the coalition to form Democracy is Freedom – Daisy, in 2002. This was born by the merge of the Italian People's Party, The Democrats, launched by Romano Prodi in 1999 with a centre-left platform based on social liberalism, social democracy and Christian left, and Italian Renewal. In the 2001 general election these three parties, alongside with UDEUR Populars, formed a electoral alliance under the leadership of Francesco Rutelli, then candidate Prime Minister for The Olive Tree coalition, and then transformed it into a single centrist party, without the partecipation of UDEUR Populars.

In the summer of 2003, Romano Prodi suggested the centre-left forces to participate in the 2004 European Parliament election with a common list. Whereas the UDEUR Populars and the far-left parties refused the offer, four parties accepted it: the Democrats of the Left, Democracy is Freedom, the Italian Democratic Socialists and the European Republicans Movement. They launched a joint-list named "United in the Olive Tree" which ran in the election, scoring 31.1% nationally. The project was later abandoned in 2005 by the Italian Democratic Socialists, which preferred to run in a ticket, the Rose in the Fist, with the Italian Radicals. In the 2006 general election, the Olive Tree list ran only for the Chamber of Deputies, obtaining 31.3%.

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 Prime Minister candidate, gave a push to the project of a unified centre-left party. Since then, Francesco Rutelli and Piero Fassino, party leaders of Democracy is Freedom and the Democrats of the Left, scheduled their party conventions for April 2007 in order to formally approve the merger.

On 19 April 2007 the Democrats of the Left held their last party congress, since approximately 75% of party members voted in support of the creation of the Democratic Party as soon as possible, while the left-wing minority, led 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 and founded a new leftist party called Democratic Left more keen on uniting the far-left under a united banner. This ultimately led Angius to abandon the new party in favour of the creation of a much moderate social-democratic party with the Italian Democratic Socialists, the Socialist Party.

On 22 May 2007 the list of members of the Organizing Committee of the Democratic Party was announced: it featured 45 politicians, mainly from the two major parties involved in the process, but also including figures such as Marco Follini, Ottaviano Del Turco, Luciana Sbarbati, Renato Soru, Giuliano Amato, Gad Lerner and Tullia Zevi.^[1] On 18 June the Committee met to decide the rules for the open election of the 2,400 members of the Constituting Assembly. Prodi announced each voter would have chosen between a number of lists, each of them associated with a candidate leader; the assembly would then have elected the first leader in a Founding Convention, scheduled on 14 October.

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

All candidates interested in running for the Democratic Party leadership must have presented at least 2,000 valid signatures not later than 30 July 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 30 July 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.^[2] All rejected candidates had the chance against the decision in 48 hours' time,^[3] with Pannella and Rutigliano being the only two candidates to appeal against it.^[4] Both were rejected on 3 August.^[5]

All opinions polls taken since then predicted a clear victory for Veltroni in the election, with results ranging from 65% to 75% circa.^[6][7][8] 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.^[9]

Veltroni was officially crowned as first Democratic Party secretary during the founding constituting assembly held in Milan on 28 October 2007.^[10] On 21 November, the new logo was unveiled; it depicts the party acronym (PD) with colours reminiscent of the Italian tricolour flag (green, white and red) and featuring also the olive branch, historical symbol of the Olive Tree. In the words of Ermete Realacci, green represents the ecologist and social-liberal cultures, white is for the Catholic solidarity and red for the socialist and social-democratic traditions.^[11]

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).

Public support for the new party has been quoted as being between 27.5%^[12] and 35%.^[13]

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).^[14]

• Secretary: Walter Veltroni (2007–...)
  • Deputy-Secretary: Dario Franceschini (2007–...)
  • Executive Coordinator: Goffredo Bettini (2007–...)
  • Treasurer: Mauro Agostini (2007–...)
• President: Romano Prodi (2007–...)

• Party Leader in the Chamber of Deputies: Antonello Soro (2007–...)
• Party Leader in the Senate: Anna Finocchiaro (2007–...)

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

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

v • d • e Political parties in Italy (complete version, historical parties)
The Union	Democratic Party – The Left (Communist Refoundation Party – Democratic Left – Party of Italian Communists – Federation of the Greens) Minor: Italy of Values – UDEUR Populars – Italian Democratic Socialists – Italian Radicals Micro: Liberal Democrats – Democratic Union – Critical Left – Italian Democratic Socialist Party – Citizens' Political Movement 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 – Decide! Regional: Valdotanian Union – Edelweiss Aosta Valley – Autonomist Federation – Union for South Tyrol – The Libertarians – North-East Project – Sardinian Action Party Complete list
Portal:Politics - List of political parties - Politics of Italy