Romano Prodi is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Prime Minister of Italy, first from 18 May 1996 to 21 October 1998, and then from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008. Prodi is considered the founder of the Italian centre-left and one of the most prominent and iconic figures of the Second Republic. He is often nicknamed Il Professore due to his academic career.
The Democrats of the Left was a social-democratic political party in Italy. Positioned on the centre-left, the DS, successor of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) and the Italian Communist Party, was formed in 1998 upon the merger of the PDS with several minor parties. A member of The Olive Tree coalition, the DS was successively led by Massimo D'Alema, Walter Veltroni, and Piero Fassino, and merged with Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy and a number of minor centre-left parties to form the Democratic Party in October 2007.
Mario Monti is an Italian economist and academic who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from 2011 to 2013, leading a technocratic government in the wake of the Italian debt crisis.
The Union of the Centre, whose complete name is "Union of Christian and Centre Democrats", is a Christian-democratic political party in Italy. Lorenzo Cesa is the party's current secretary; Pier Ferdinando Casini was for years the most recognisable figure and de facto leader of the party, before eventually distancing from it in 2016. The UdC is a member of the European People's Party (EPP) and the Centrist Democrat International (CDI), of which Casini was president from 2004 to 2015.
Pier Luigi Bersani is an Italian politician and was Secretary of the Democratic Party (PD), Italy's leading centre-left party, from 2009 to 2013. Bersani was Minister of Industry, Commerce and Craftmanship from 1996 to 1999, President of Emilia-Romagna from 1993 to 1996, Minister of Transport from 1999 to 2001, and Minister of Economic Development from 2006 to 2008.
Pier Ferdinando Casini is an Italian politician. He served as President of the Chamber of Deputies from 2001 to 2006.
Giorgio Napolitano is an Italian politician who served as the president of Italy from 2006 to 2015, the first to be re-elected to the office. Due to his dominant position in Italian politics, some critics have sometimes referred to him as Re Giorgio. In office from 2006 to 2015, he is the longest-serving and longest-lived president in the history of the modern Italian Republic, which has been in existence since 1946.
The Workers' Communist Party is a communist party in Italy. It was created in 2006 by the Trotskyist breakaway wing of the Communist Refoundation Party led by Marco Ferrando. The PCL is the Italian section of Coordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International.
The Democratic Party is a social-democratic political party in Italy. The party's secretary is Elly Schlein, elected in the 2023 leadership election, while the party's president is Stefano Bonaccini.
The Liberal Democrats, whose complete name is Liberal Democrats for Renewal, is a liberal and centrist political party in Italy.
Network Italy is a Christian-democratic association connected to Popular Alternative (AP), a political party in Italy, and earlier to The People of Freedom. Most of its members, including its long-time leader Roberto Formigoni, are members of the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation (CL).
Massimo D'Alema is an Italian politician and journalist who was the 53rd prime minister of Italy from 1998 to 2000. He was Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2008. D'Alema also served for a time as national secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS). Earlier in his career, D'Alema was a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and was the first former Communist party member to become prime minister of a NATO country and the only former PCI prime minister of Italy. Due to his first name and for his dominant position in the left-wing coalitions during the Second Republic, he is referred to as Leader Maximo. He is also the author of several books.
Claudio Burlando is an Italian politician, and was President of Liguria, until 31 March 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and a former Democrats of the Left member.
The New Pole for Italy, better known as the Third Pole and less frequently as Pole of the Nation, was a centrist coalition of parties in Italy active from late 2010 to sometime in 2012.
Future Italy was an Italian liberal-centrist think tank, formed in 2009 by Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, chairman of Alitalia and former chairman of Ferrari (1991–2014), FIAT (2004–2010) and Confindustria (2004–2008).
The 2013 Italian general election was held on 24 and 25 February 2013 to determine the 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the 315 elective members of the Senate of the Republic for the 17th Italian Parliament. The centre-left alliance Italy Common Good, led by the Democratic Party (PD), obtained a clear majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies thanks to a majority bonus that effectively trebled the number of seats assigned to the winning force and narrowly defeated the centre-right alliance of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the popular vote. Close behind, the new anti-establishment Five Star Movement of comedian Beppe Grillo became the third force, well ahead of the centrist coalition of outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti. In the Senate, no political group or party won an outright majority, resulting in a hung parliament.
With Monti for Italy was an electoral coalition of political parties in Italy, formed for the 2013 general election to support the outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti and his reform plans. Its platform was based on Monti's manifesto titled "Change Italy. Reform Europe."
Civic Choice was a centrist and liberal political party in Italy founded by Mario Monti. The party was formed in the run-up of the 2013 general election to support the outgoing Prime Minister Monti and continue his political agenda. In the election SC was part of a centrist coalition named With Monti for Italy, along with Union of the Centre of Pier Ferdinando Casini and Future and Freedom of Gianfranco Fini.
The centre-left coalition is a political alliance of political parties in Italy active under several forms and names since 1995, when The Olive Tree was formed under the leadership of Romano Prodi. The centre-left coalition has ruled the country for more than fifteen years between 1996 and 2022; to do so, it had mostly to rely on a big tent that went from the more radical left-wing, which had more weight between 1996 and 2008, to the political centre, which had more weight during the 2010s, and its main parties were also part of grand coalitions and national unity governments.
The 2017 Democratic Party leadership election was an open primary election held on 30 April 2017. The three candidates were Matteo Renzi, former Prime Minister and party secretary until February 2017, Michele Emiliano, President of Apulia, and Andrea Orlando, the Minister of Justice. Renzi was elected by a landslide 70%, and appointed Maurizio Martina as his deputy secretary.
