Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy

Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (Democrazia è Libertà – La Margherita, DL) was a centrist Italian political party. The party president and leader was Francesco Rutelli, former Mayor of Rome and former candidate for Prime Minister at the 2001 general election for The Olive Tree.

DL was formed by former leftist Christian Democrats, centrists (former Liberals and former Republicans), as well as more leftist politicians, especially former Socialists and Greens. It merged into the Democratic Party on 14 October 2007.

History

The idea of uniting the centrist components of The Olive Tree coalitions, which were divided in many parties, was discussed at least since 1996. In the 1996 general election there were actually two centrist lists within the centre-left: that of the Italian People's Party (PPI), including Democratic Union (UD), the Italian Republican Party (PRI) and the South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP), and that of Italian Renewal (RI), including the Italian Socialists (SI), merged into the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI) in 1998, and Patto Segni (PS). In 1998 splinters from the centre-right coalition formed the Democratic Union for the Republic (UDR), later transformed in UDEUR Populars (UDEUR), in order to support D'Alema I Cabinet. In 1999 splinters of PPI, UD and other groups formed The Democrats (Dem).

Between 1998 and 2000, in Northeast Italy, there were several precursors of such idea at the regional and local level, notably the Reform Popular Centre in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the Daisy Civic List in Trentino and Together for Veneto in Veneto. Initially some of these experiments were intended to include both christian-inspired parties and more secular ones, such as SDI and PRI, but, in October 2000, only PPI, Dem, UDEUR and RI agreed to join forces in a joint list called "Daisy" for the 2001 general election. Daisy, led by Francesco Rutelli (who was also candidate for Prime Minister for the whole centre-left), won 14.5% of the vote, only two points less than the Democrats of the Left (DS).

Democracy is Freedom - The Daisy was established as a single party during the founding congress of Parma in February 2002. In that occasion the Italian People's Party, The Democrats and Italian Renewal merged in the new party, while the Union of Democrats for Europe decided to step aside it.

In the 2006 general election, the party was member of the winning The Union coalition and won 39 out of 315 senators. The Olive Tree list, to which DL was part since the2004 European Parliament election, won 220 seats out of 630 deputies. On 14 October 2007 DL was merged with DS and some small parties to form the Democratic Party.

Ideology

Democracy Is Freedom was a pro-European centrist-liberal party, with a strong support among Catholics, especially progressive ones. The party put together social-conservatives with social-liberals, economic liberals and social-democrats. Many members of the former Italian People's Party, one of the ancestor parties of DL, were members or close supporters of the Italian Confederation of Workers' Trade Unions, the Catholic trade union.

After the 2004 European elections the new party decided not to become a member neither of the ELDR nor of the EPP, but formed together with the Union for French Democracy the European Democratic Party. In the European Parliament DL joined the group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

In 2005 DL participated in the foundation of the Alliance of Democrats, a worldwide network of centrist parties, along with the New Democrat Coalition of the United States Democratic Party, the EDP member parties and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats.

Members

Leading members of the party included:

• Former Christian Democrats: Gerardo Bianco, Rosy Bindi, Enzo Carra, Pierluigi Castagnetti, Luigi Cocilovo, Sergio D'Antoni, Ciriaco De Mita, Giuseppe Fioroni, Dario Franceschini, Enrico Letta, Renzo Lusetti, Nicola Mancino, Franco Marini, Sergio Mattarella, Lapo Pistelli, Vittorio Prodi, Rosa Russo Jervolino, Patrizia Toia
• Former Socialists: Laura Fincato, Giuseppe La Ganga, Linda Lanzillotta, Enrico Manca, Pierluigi Mantini, Tiziano Treu
• Former Social Democrats: Franco Bruno, Sandro Gozi, Andrea Papini, Italo Tanoni
• Former Liberals: Cinzia Dato, Natale D'Amico, Lamberto Dini, Valerio Zanone
• Former Republicans: Enzo Bianco, Antonio Maccanico, Roberto Manzione
• Former Radicals: Francesco Rutelli, Roberto Giachetti
• Former Greens: Paolo Gentiloni, Ermete Realacci, Francesco Rutelli, Gianni Vernetti
• Former Communists: Willer Bordon, Massimo Cacciari, Maurizio Fistarol, Antonio Polito

Factions

DL was mainly composed of four factions, the first three of them supporting Francesco Rutelli's leadership:

• Rutelliani. It was Rutelli's own group, was composed of Paolo Gentiloni, Roberto Giacchetti, Renzo Lusetti, Ermete Realacci, Gianni Vernetti, Luigi Lusi, Rino Piscitello, Maurizio Fistarol and Riccardo Villari. This group was supportive of the idea of forming a Democratic Party with DS, but they wanted to model it similarly to the United States Democratic Party and for this reason they supported the foundation of the European Democratic Party.
• Popolari. This group represented the core of the former Italian People's Party (a leftish christian-democratic party), as Franco Marini, Ciriaco De Mita, Pierluigi Castagnetti, Gerardo Bianco, Nicola Mancino, Enrico Letta, Dario Franceschini, Giuseppe Fioroni, Rosy Bindi, Lapo Pistelli and Sergio D'Antoni. This group supported Rutelli as leader of the party, although there were some differences about the future Democratic Party with DS, as Popolari were proud of their supposedly christian-democratic identity and some of them would preferred to re-join the European People's Party, while rejecting the idea of joining the Party of European Socialists.
• Teodem. This was a group of socially conservative christian democrats, formed by Paola Binetti, Luigi Bobba, Enzo Carra, Patrizia Toia, Emanuela Baio Dossi and Marco Calgaro. Usually considered the right-wing of the party, they supported Rutelli as leader of the party.
• Ulivisti. This group represented the core of the former Democrats, as Arturo Parisi, Enzo Bianco, Willer Bordon, Antonio Maccanico, Franco Monaco, Pierluigi Mantini, Marina Magistrelli, Roberto Manzione, Cinzia Dato and Giovanni Procacci. This group, very close to Romano Prodi, was the most supportive of the Democratic Party project and tended to be more secular, although most of its members have Catholic connections.

Popular support

The electoral results of Democracy is Freedom – Daisy in the 10 most populated Regions of Italy are shown in the table below. As DL was founded in 2002, the electoral results from 1994 to 2001 refer to the combined result of the precursor parties.

The results of 1994 (general) refer to the combined result of PPI, Patto Segni and AD, those of 1994 to the combined result of PPI and Pact of Democrats (joint-list of Patto Segni and AD, including also SI), those of 1996 (general and Sicilian regional) to the combined result of the joint-list of PPI and UD and RI (whose list comprised Patto Segni and SI), those of 1999 (European) and 2000 (regional) to the combined result of PPI, Dem and RI, those of 2001 (general and Sicilian regional) the DL federation (comprising at the time PPI, Dem, UDEUR Populars and RI).

From 2004 (European) the results refer to DL, formed by PPI, Dem and RI, after the defection of UDEUR. The result for the 2006 general election refers to the election for the Senate, indeed DS contested the election for the Chamber of Deputies in a joint-list with DS.

Leadership

• President: Francesco Rutelli (2001–2007)
• President of the Federal Assembly: Arturo Parisi (2001–2006), Willer Bordon (2006–2007), Enzo Bianco (2007)
• Executive Coordinator: Dario Franceschini (2001–2006), Antonello Soro (2006–2007)
• Organizational Secretary: Franco Marini (2001–2006), Nicodemo Nazzareno Oliviero (2006–2007)

• Party Leader in the Chamber of Deputies: Pierluigi Castagnetti (2001–2006), Dario Franceschini (leader of the Olive Tree's group, 2006–2007)
• Party Leader in the Senate: Willer Bordon (2001–2006), Luigi Zanda (deputy-leader of the Olive Tree's group, 2006–2007)
• Party Leader in the European Parliament: Lapo Pistelli (2004–2007), Alfonso Andria (2007–2008), Gianluca Susta (2008–2009)

An election campaign street stall for DL in Milan, 2004

See also

• Liberalism and radicalism in Italy
• Centrism

References

External links

• Official website

Political parties in Italy (, historical parties) Major The People of Freedom – Democratic Party Medium Lega Nord – Union of Christian and Centre Democrats – Italy of Values – Communist Refoundation Party Minor Movement for Autonomy – Italian Radicals – Italian Republican Party – Liberal Democrats – White Rose – Alliance of the Centre – The Right – Democratic Left – Socialist Party – Federation of the Greens – Party of Italian Communists – Tricolour Flame – New Force – Workers' Communist Party – Associative Movement Italians Abroad Regional Valdotanian Union – Edelweiss Aosta Valley – Autonomist Federation – Valdotanian Renewal – Lively Aosta Valley – Moderates for Piedmont – South Tyrolean People's Party – The Libertarians – South Tyrolean Freedom – Union for Trentino – Trentino Tyrolean Autonomist Party – North-East Project – Veneto for the EPP – UDEUR Populars – Sardinian Reformers – Sardinian People's Party – Sardinian Democratic Union – Sardinian Action Party List of political parties in Italy - Politics of Italy