| Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy Democrazia è Libertà – La Margherita |
|
|---|---|
| Leader | Francesco Rutelli |
| Founded | 24 March 2002 |
| Dissolved | 14 October 2007 |
| Merger of | PPI, RI, Dem |
| Merged into | Democratic Party |
| Newspaper | Europa |
| Membership (2006) | 430,000[1] |
| Ideology | Centrism, Christian left, Social liberalism, Christian democracy, Social democracy |
| National affiliation | The Olive Tree (2002-2007), The Union (2005-2007) |
| International affiliation | Alliance of Democrats (2005-2007) |
| European affiliation | European Democratic Party (2004–2007) |
| European Parliament Group | Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (2004–2007) |
| Politics of Italy Political parties Elections |
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Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (Italian: 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 of Italy during the 2001 general election for The Olive Tree coalition.
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. DL merged with the Democrats of the Left and minor parties to found the Democratic Party on 14 October 2007.
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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 Italian 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), which 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 into UDEUR Populars, in order to support the 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 "The Daisy" for the 2001 general election. The 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 remain a separate party.
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 the 2004 European Parliament election, won 220 seats out of 630 in the Italian Chamber of Deputies. On 14 October 2007, DL, DS and numerous minor parties merged to form the Democratic Party.
Democracy Is Freedom was a pro-European centrist party, with a strong support among Catholics, especially progressive ones. The party put together social conservatives with social progressives, economic liberals and social democrats. Many former members of the Italian People's Party, one of the ancestor parties of DL, were members or close supporters of the Italian Confederation of Workers' Trade Unions (CISL), the Catholic trade union.
After the 2004 European elections the new party decided not to become a member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR) nor of the European People's Party, but founded the European Democratic Party (EDP) together with the Union for French Democracy. In the European Parliament, the EDP and ELDR Europarties formed the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group.
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.
Leading members of the party included:
DL was mainly composed of four factions, the first three of them supporting Francesco Rutelli's leadership:
The electoral results of Democracy is Freedom – The 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 DL contested the election for the Chamber of Deputies in a joint list with Democrats of the Left.
| 1994 general | 1995 regional | 1996 general | 1999 European | 2000 regional | 2001 general | 2004 European | 2005 regional | 2006 general | |
| Piedmont | 13.1 | 9.7 | 9.7 | 11.3 | 7.9 | 15.1 | with Ulivo | 10.4 | 11.7 |
| Lombardy | 15.0 | 9.4 | 10.4 | 10.1 | with Ulivo | 15.1 | with Ulivo | with Ulivo | 10.0 |
| Veneto | 21.1 | 15.0 | 13.3 | 12.7 | 13.7 | 14.9 | with Ulivo | with Ulivo | 11.9 |
| Emilia-Romagna | 14.8 | 9.3 | 11.8 | 10.9 | 7.7 | 15.5 | with Ulivo | with Ulivo | 9.4 |
| Tuscany | 15.7 | 6.4 | 10.0 | 9.1 | 6.9 | 13.4 | with Ulivo | with Ulivo | 9.0 |
| Lazio | 14.4 | 6.0 | 10.0 | 11.9 | 9.6 | 16.1 | with Ulivo | with Ulivo | 9.1 |
| Campania | 16.8 | 13.8 | 12.2 | 17.9 | 18.7 | 12.1 | with Ulivo | 16.0 | 12.8 |
| Apulia | 22.2[2] | 13.6 | 8.9 | 16.7 | 13.7 | 16.1 | with Ulivo | 9.7 | 11.1 |
| Calabria | 19.8 | 15.1 | 11.0 | 18.0 | 13.4 | 10.7 | with Ulivo | 14.5 | 10.3 |
| Sicily | 14.2 | 12.3 (1996) | 10.1 | 19.6 | 12.3 (2001) | 13.9 | with Ulivo | 12.0 (2006) | 11.8 |
| ITALY | 18.9 | - | 11.1 | 14.6 | - | 14.5 | - | - | 10.5 |