Italian People's Party

The Italian People's Party (, PPI) was a Christian-democratic, centrist and Christian-leftist political party in Italy. The party was a member of the European People's Party (EPP). The PPI was the formal successor of the Christian Democracy (DC), but was soon deprived of its conservative elements, which successively formed the Christian Democratic Centre (CCD) in 1994 and the United Christian Democrats (CDU) in 1995. The PPI was finally merged into Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL) in 2002, and DL was later merged with the Democrats of the Left (DS) and minor centre-left parties into Democratic Party (PD) in 2007. History The party emerged in January 1994 as the successor to the Christian Democracy (DC), Italy's dominant party since World War II, following the final national council of the DC and the split of a right-wing faction led by Pier Ferdinando Casini, which had formed the Christian Democratic Centre (CCD). The first secretary of the PPI was Mino Martinazzoli. He led the party to a severe defeat (11.1% of the vote) in the 1994 general election, fought in coalition with the Segni Pact, under the Pact for Italy banner. It was one of the worst defeats ever suffered by a Western European governing party. After the election, Martinazzoli was replaced as secretary by conservative philosopher Rocco Buttiglione. In 1995, when his proposal to join the centre-right Pole of Freedoms coalition (composed of Forza Italia, National Alliance and the CCD) was rejected by the party's national council, Buttiglione, along with Roberto Formigoni, Gianfranco Rotondi and other bigwigs, formed the United Christian Democrats (CDU). This essentially left the PPI as the left wing of the former DC. As such, the PPI joined the centre-left coalition.