Movement for Autonomy

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Movement for Autonomy Movimento per l'Autonomia
Regional Party of Southern Italy
Leader	Raffaele Lombardo
Founded	April 30, 2005
Headquarters	Via dell'Oca, 27 00186 Rome
Coalition	House of Freedoms
Political ideology	Regionalism, Christian Democracy, Centrism, Conservatism, Social Democracy (minority factions), Liberalism (minority factions)
Official newspaper	none
Website	http://www.mpa-italia.it
See also	Politics of Italy Political parties in Italy Elections in Italy

The Movement for Autonomy (Italian: Movimento per l'Autonomia or MPA) is a minor Italian political party, founded on April 30, 2005 by a number of Southern Italian, especially Sicilian, right-of-centre autonomist dissidents, notably from Democrats' Centre Union and Socialist Party New PSI. It is led by Raffaele Lombardo, President of the Province of Catania and MEP, formerly of the Democrats' Centre Union. The party made its debut for the mayoral election of Messina a few months later.

The first party congress, held in Bari from December 16 to December 18, 2005, did not immediately decide any alliance for the next general election, claiming the new movement recognized itself as "centrist"; however, on February 4, 2006, an electoral alliance in the House of Freedoms sphere with the Northern League, a populist and regionalist movement based in Northern Italy, was announced.

Lombardo claimed to have discarded the possibility of an alliance with the centre-left The Union mainly because of the latter's opposition about the build of the Strait of Messina Bridge and party's opposition to PACS. Because of the party's support to build the Messina Bridge, Moviment for Authonomy's actual interest on Sicilian matters was often questioned by its opponents.

In the election, the party elected five deputies and two senators, of which 3 deputies and a senator in Sicily.