History
1890s–1940s
The first modern political party in Italy was the Italian Socialist Party, established in 1892. [1] Until then, the main political groupings of the country, the Historical Right and the Historical Left, were not classifiable as parties but represented simple groups of notables, each with their own electoral fiefdom, that joined together according to their own ideas. [2] From time to time, in the context of the Historical Far Left, other parties emerged: the Italian Republican Party, established in 1895; [3] and the Italian Radical Party, established in 1904. [4]
The Italian Socialist Party envisaged itself as a mass party, a form of party that would dominate throughout the 20th century. It was followed a few years later by the Italian People's Party, established in 1919. Both parties achieved electoral success until the advent of Italian fascism, contributing decisively to the loss of strength and authority of the old liberal ruling class, which had not been able to structure itself into a proper party: the Liberals' grouping, launched in 1913, was not a coherent one and the Italian Liberal Party, formed in 1922, came too late. The beginning of 1921 saw the foundation of the Communist Party of Italy, born from a split of the Italian Socialist Party. Also in 1921, Benito Mussolini gave birth to the National Fascist Party, and the next year, through the March on Rome, he was appointed Prime Minister of Italy. In 1926, through the leggi fascistissime (lit. 'very fascist laws'), all parties were dissolved except the National Fascist Party, which thus remained the only legal party in the Kingdom of Italy until the fall of the fascist regime in Italy in July 1943.
Following the dissolution of the Communist International in May 1943, the Communist Party of Italy was rebranded Italian Communist Party. In September 9143, six anti-fascist parties (the Christian Democracy, the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Communist Party, the Italian Liberal Party, the Action Party, and the Labour Democratic Party) formed the joint National Liberation Committee, which gained official recognition as the representative of the Italian resistance movement (the National Liberation Committee recognised the Italian monarchs, thus the Italian Republican Party stayed out because of its full loyalty to republican principles). The parties then formed in various combinations the governments of Italy from the liberation of Rome in 1944 until 1947, when the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party were ejected.
1940s–1990s
With the 1946 Italian institutional referendum, Italy became a republic and a Constituent Assembly wrote the republican Constitution of Italy. Between 1948 and 1992, the party system was dominated by two major parties: Christian Democracy, the structural party of government, and the Italian Communist Party, the main opposition party. [5] Another stable opposition party was the Italian Social Movement, a neo-fascist party founded by Mussolini's fascist followers, which was subjected to a cordone sanitaire and excluded from the Constitutional Arch. When the short-lived Tambroni government received the necessary vote of confidence from the Italian Parliament thanks to the support of the Italian Social Movement in 1960, a unique case in the history of the Italian Republic, it sparked significant criticism and protests. [6] [7] For about half a century, following a conventio ad excludendum of the Italian Communist Party, [8] the governments were led by Christian Democracy, which chose its coalition partners among smaller parties situated either to its left or right: the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, the Italian Liberal Party, and the Italian Republican Party. [9]
The Italian system of centrism, which began in 1947 with the expulsion of the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party were ejected, lasted until around 1958, when the organic centre-left began to take root and governed the country between from 1963 to 1976, leading to the Historic Compromise between Christian Democracy and the Italian Communist Party. Between 1981 and 1991, with the failure of the Historic Compromise the Christian Democrats formed coalition governments named Pentapartito with Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, the Italian Liberal Party, and the Italian Republican Party. [10] That was the time when several Northern Italy regional parties, whose policy themes were federalism and autonomism, were established. In 1991, they federated themselves into Lega Nord, which became the country's fourth largest party in the 1992 Italian general election. [11]
1990s–2020s
From 1991 to 1993, Italy was governed by the Quadripartito , which included all parties of the Pentapartito with the exception of the Italian Republican Party. Between 1992 and 1994, the established party system was shaken by a series of corruption scandals known collectively as Tangentopoli . These events led to the disappearance of the five parties of government. [12] Consequently, the Italian Communist Party, which had evolved to become the Democratic Party of the Left in 1991, with the exit of the Communist Refoundation Party, and the post-fascists, who had launched National Alliance in 1994, gained strength. On the contrary, Christian Democracy, which changed its name to Italian People's Party in 1994, lost its centrality in the Italian party system. Following the 1994 Italian general election, media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi became Prime Minister at the head of a government composed mainly of his brand-new Forza Italia party, joined by several members of the defunct mainstream parties, National Alliance and Lega Nord. [13]
Between 1996 and 2008, the political parties were organised into two big coalitions, which took turns in government: the centre-right Pole for Freedoms, which was renamed House of Freedoms after the re-entry of Lega Nord in 2000, and The Olive Tree, lately part of a broader coalition named The Union, on the centre-left. [14] As for the centre-left, the Democratic Party of the Left changed its name again in 1998, becoming Democrats of the Left, [15] while in 2002 a new party called Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy was founded by the merger of some centrist parties (including the Italian People's Party). In 2008, following the fall of the centre-left government led by Romano Prodi, the Democratic Party (established in 2007 upon the merger of the Democrats of the Left and The Daisy) decided to break the alliance with the Communist Refoundation Party and other minor left-wing parties. Contextually, on the centre-right of the political spectrum, Forza Italia and National Alliance merged to form The People of Freedom, [16] which continued the alliance with Lega Nord and prevailed in the 2008 Italian general election. [17]
In the 2013 Italian general election, the party system was fragmented in four groupings: the centre-left alliance led by the Democratic Party; the traditional centre-right alliance between the People of Freedom, Lega Nord, and the newly-founded Brothers of Italy (a right-wing split of The People of Freedom, formed mainly by former members of National Alliance); the Five Star Movement founded by Beppe Grillo; and a new centrist coalition around the outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti with the Civic Choice party. [18] In November 2013, the national council of The People of Freedom, at the behest of Berlusconi, suspended all party activities, to relaunch Forza Italia, [19] which would experience multiple splits. In the 2018 Italian general election, the major groupings were reduced to three: the centre-right coalition, composed of Lega (Lega Nord's evolution on a countrywide scale), Forza Italia, Brothers of Italy, and minor allies; the Five Star Movement (which was the single most voted party); and the centre-left coalition, composed of the Democratic Party and minor allies. [20] The centre-right coalition won a full majority in the 2022 Italian general election, leading to a government led by Brothers of Italy's leader Giorgia Meloni (the first since 2008 to be formed by a coalition of parties having fought the election together), while the opposition was fragmented in three segments: the Democratic Party-led centre-left coalition; the Five Star Movement; and a centrist alliance between Action and Italia Viva (both splinter groups of the Democratic Party).
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