Alliance of Progressives

Not to be confused with Progressive Alliance (disambiguation).

Alliance of Progressives Alleanza dei Progressisti
Leader	Achille Occhetto (first) Fausto Bertinotti (last)
Founded	February 1994 (first iteration) 1996 (second iteration)
Dissolved	March 1995 (first iteration) 1996 (second iteration)
Succeeded by	The Olive Tree
Political position	Left-wing [1] [2]
Politics of Italy Political parties Elections

The Alliance of Progressives (Italian : Alleanza dei Progressisti) was a left-wing ^{[1] [2]} political alliance of parties in Italy formed in 1994, with relevant predecessors at local level in 1993. ^{[3] [4]} The leader of the alliance was Achille Occhetto. ^[5] The alliance was a predecessor of the modern-day centre-left coalition.

History

The Alliance of Progressives was formed in the wake of Tangentopoli and the end of the so-called First Republic, when the once-dominant Christian Democrats (DC) and four other establishment parties collapsed and were replaced by new political formations during 1992–1994, while the Italian Communist Party had earlier in 1991 abandoned communism and reformed itself as the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS). ^{[3] [6]}

The PDS was the core party of the Alliance, which also included the Communist Refoundation Party, the Federation of the Greens, the remnant Italian Socialist Party and Socialist Rebirth, DC splinter Social Christians, the anti-Mafia Network and Democratic Alliance, the latter formed by former Republicans and Socialists. ^{[3] [7]} The Alliance was formed in part as a response to the Italian electoral system moving to a more majoritarian system. ^[8]

The Alliance suffered a decisive defeat in the 1994 general election by the centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, which was organised as the Pole of Freedoms in northern Italy and Pole of Good Government in southern Italy. ^[3] In the election both left-wing and centre-right coalitions also competed with the Pact for Italy, a centrist alliance formed by DC successor the Italian People's Party (PPI) and the Segni Pact. ^{[1] [9]}

For the 1995 regional election and 1996 general election the Alliance was succeeded by a broader centre-left coalition led by Romano Prodi known as The Olive Tree, which included the PPI (diminished by the split of the United Christian Democrats in 1995), Segni Pact and Italian Renewal, but excluding the Communist Refoundation Party, which was an external ally and presented its candidates under the "Progressives" banner in some single-seat constituencies. ^{[5] [8]}

Composition

The alliance was composed of: ^{[4] [10]}

Party		Ideology	Leader
	Democratic Party of the Left (PDS)	Democratic socialism	Achille Occhetto
	Social Christians [lower-alpha 1]	Christian left	Pierre Carniti
	Communist Refoundation Party (PRC)	Communism	Fausto Bertinotti
	Federation of the Greens (FdV)	Green politics	Carlo Ripa di Meana
	Italian Socialist Party (PSI)	Social democracy	Ottaviano Del Turco
	Socialist Rebirth (RS) [lower-alpha 2]	Social democracy	Giorgio Benvenuto
	The Network (LR)	Anti-corruption	Leoluca Orlando
	Democratic Alliance (AD)	Social liberalism	Willer Bordon

1. Contested elections under the PDS electoral lists.
2. Contested elections under the PSI electoral lists.

Election results

Election	Leader	Chamber of Deputies					Senate of the Republic
		Votes	%	Seats	-/+	Position	Votes	%	Seats	-/+	Position
1994	Achille Occhetto	12,632,680	32.81	213 / 630	New	2nd	10,881,320	32.90	123 / 315	New	2nd
1996	Fausto Bertinotti	982,505	2.62	15 / 630	198	5th	934,974	2.87	10 / 315	113	4th

References

1. Ram Mudambi; Pietro Navarra; Giuseppe Sobbrio, eds. (2001). Rules, Choice and Strategy: The Political Economy of Italian Electoral Reform. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 50. ISBN   978-1-78195-082-1.
2. Daniela Giannetti; Rose Mulé (2007). "The Democratici di Sinistra: In Search of a New Identity". In Anna Bosco; Leonardo Morlino (eds.). Party Change in Southern Europe. Routledge. p. 134. ISBN   978-1-136-76777-7.
3. Christina Holtz-Bacha; Gianpietro Mazzoleni (2004). The Politics of Representation: Election Campaigning and Proportional Representation. Peter Lang. pp. 57–60. ISBN   978-0-8204-6148-9.
4. Stefan Köppl (2007). Das politische System Italiens: Eine Einführung. Springer-Verlag. p. 98. ISBN   978-3-531-14068-1.
5. Gino Moliterno, ed. (2002). Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture. Routledge. p. 852. ISBN   978-1-134-75877-7.
6. Carol Diane St Louis (2011). Negotiating Change: Approaches to and the Distributional Implications of Social Welfare and Economic Reform. Stanford University. p. 119. STANFORD:RW793BX2256. Retrieved 17 August 2012.
7. Nikiforos Diamandouros; Richard Gunther, eds. (2001). "Notes to Pages 346–380". Parties, Politics, and Democracy in the New Southern Europe. JHU Press. p. 424. ISBN   978-0-8018-6518-3.
8. Roberto Biorcio (2002). "Italy". In Ferdinand Muller-Rommel; Thomas Poguntke (eds.). Green Parties in National Governments. Routledge. p. 42. ISBN   978-1-135-28826-6.
9. Roberto D'Alimonte (2005). "Italy: A Case of Fragmented Bipolarism". In Michael Gallagher; Paul Mitchell (eds.). The Politics of Electoral Systems. OUP Oxford. p. 265. ISBN   978-0-19-153151-4.
10. Sona Nadenichek Golder (2006). The Logic of Pre-electoral Coalition Formation. Ohio State University Press. p. 160. ISBN   978-0-8142-1029-1.