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South Tyrolean People's Party
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| South Tyrolean People's Party Südtiroler Volkspartei |
|
|---|---|
 Italian Lingual-Minority Party |
|
| Leader | Elmar Pichler Rolle |
| Founded | May 8, 1945 |
| Headquarters | Via Brennero, 7/A 39100 Bolzano |
| Coalition | Regional |
| Political ideology | Regionalism, Christian democracy |
| International affiliation | none |
| European affiliation | European People's Party |
| European Parliament Group | European People's Party–European Democrats |
| Membership | 68,000 (2003, [1]) |
| Official newspaper | ZIS |
| Website | www.svpartei.org |
| See also | Politics of Italy |
The South Tyrolean People's Party (Südtiroler Volkspartei, SVP) was founded in 1945 and is a political party in the Italian province of Bolzano-Bozen.
The SVP campaigns on a program of increased rights for German and Ladin-speakers in the province Bolzano-Bozen, which was annexed by Italy after the First World War. The province now has wide autonomy. There is no official ideology in the party, as it is meant to represent all German and Ladin speakers in Bolzano-Bozen.
The ideology of SVP, which is a typical example of catch-all party, ranges from Christian democracy, due to the deep Catholic tradition of Bolzano-Bozen, and elements of social democracy, due to the lack of a true social-democratic party, apart from the tiny Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol in the Eighties. In German-speaking valleys the SVP has almost no opposition, apart from the Union for South Tyrol and The Libertarians on the right and the Greens (Bolzano-Bozen) on the left.
Since the first election to the regional parliament (1948), the party has gained more than 50 percent in every election and provides over 100 of the 116 mayors in the province.
In the 2004 European Parliamentary Election the SVP formed an electoral grouping with the Olive Tree coalition, on the understanding that an SVP candidate would be included in the list of elected if they could achieve more than 50,000 votes. In practice, Michl Ebner gained 93,169 votes and was included in the list of MEPs. Since the party is an observer member of the European People's Party (EPP), Ebner sits in the EPP section of the EPP-ED Group.
In the 9-10 April 2006 general elections, the party was member of the winning The Union (L'Unione) and won 3 out of 315 senators and 3 out of 630 deputies, along with the Trentino Tyrolean Autonomist Party (1 deputy).
