This article needs to be updated.(December 2021) |
Democrats Really (Democratici Davvero) is a faction within the Democratic Party (PD), a political party in Italy.
The group, whose leader is Rosy Bindi, basically includes Christian left politicians and social democrats. They have been close supporters of Romano Prodi and wanted the party to stick to the tradition of The Olive Tree, along with the Olivists.
In the 2007 primary election for choosing the party leader, most Olivists, supported Rosy Bindi, along with Agazio Loiero's Southern Democratic Party and some members of The Populars, a loose association of former members of the Italian People's Party of which also Bindi was a member. The Olivists had their strongholds in Northern Italy, and especially in Veneto, Lombardy and Piedmont, but Bindi, who obtained 12.9% of the vote in the primary election nationally, had her best result in Calabria (31.3%) thanks to Loiero's support. [1]
In July 2008 Bindi and her group (Giovanni Bachelet, Gianfranco Morgando, Roberto Zaccaria, Marina Magistrelli, Nando Dalla Chiesa) broke with the core Olivists, who were much more critical of the political line of Walter Veltroni's party leadership and of the lack of internal democracy within the party. [2] [3] [4]
In the 2009 Democratic Party leadership election the faction supported Pier Luigi Bersani. [5] Bersani won and Bindi was elected president of the party.
Following the election of Bindi as party president, the faction maintained its moderate, Christian-left stance, providing key support to Bersani's leadership until his resignation in 2013 [6] . After Bersani stepped down in April 2013, following the failure to form a stable government and elect a new President [7] , the political context within the party changed dramatically.
As the party began shifting towards the centrist leadership of Matteo Renzi later in 2013, the distinct identity and organizational structure of Democrats Really began to fade. The members of the faction generally integrated into the broader left-wing currents within the Democratic Party, such as those opposed to the more liberal reform agenda associated with Renzi. Rosy Bindi herself gradually withdrew from active leadership roles, leading to the effective, though informal, dissolution of the faction as an autonomous current within the PD by the mid-2010s.