L'Unione

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L'Unione was an Italian party alliance of the center-left spectrum that existed from 2005 to 2008.

Foundation and elections

Romano Prodi, L'Unione's top candidate and Prime Minister from 2006 to 2008

L'Unione emerged from the older center-left electoral alliance L'Ulivo , which was in government from 1996 to 2001. This has now been expanded to include additional components that had previously entered into separate: the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista , the populist anti-corruption party Italia dei Valori (which had left L'Ulivo in 2000), the radical-liberal Radicali Italiani and the small Christian Democratic party Popolari UDEUR , who “tipped the scales” between center-right and center-left camps.

On April 3 and 4, 2005, the alliance took part for the first time as L'Unione in the regional elections in 13 Italian regions with normal statutes and two weeks later in Basilicata . In 12 of 14 regions, L'Unione won, which was considered a political landslide, as the center-right alliance Casa delle Libertà of Silvio Berlusconi had previously ruled in half of these regions . In the run-up to the regional elections, L'Unione held primary elections (elezioni primarie) in Calabria and Apulia for the first time to find the respective top candidate , which were open to all citizens entitled to vote (not just members of the parties involved) - a novelty in Italian politics. In Apulia, surprisingly, Nichi Vendola from the Rifondazione Comunista prevailed against Francesco Boccia from the more moderate Margherita .

To determine a top candidate for the national parliamentary elections in April 2006 , the alliance held an open primary election, which took place on October 16, 2005. 4.3 million citizens took part. Romano Prodi (who had already been Prime Minister 1996–98 and EU Commission President 1999–2004) prevailed with 74% of the vote. He had been nominated by the previous L'Ulivo parties that nominated the alliance. Among the candidates from the smaller parties, Fausto Bertinotti (Rifondazione Comunista) came in at 14.7%, Clemente Mastella (UDEUR) at 4.6%, Antonio Di Pietro (IdV) at 3.3%, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio (Verdi) at 2 , 2%.

L'Unione narrowly won the parliamentary election with a total of 49.81% of the vote (in the House of Representatives election), while Berlusconi's Casa delle Libertà came in with 49.74%. After the right to vote adopted by Berlusconi's center-right coalition in 2005, the winner received a majority bonus, which now gave the center-left alliance a clear majority of 348 to 282 seats in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, however, this rule did not apply, so that L'Unione received a wafer-thin majority of 158 to 157 seats.

Components

L'Unione consisted of the following lists and parties:

These parties formed the center-left coalition on which the Prodi II government cabinet was based from May 2006 to January 2008 . Fausto Bertinotti (PRC) was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies, Franco Marini (Margherita) was elected President of the Senate and Giorgio Napolitano (DS) was elected President.

resolution

When investigations into corruption were initiated against several high-ranking representatives of the Popolari UDEUR , the small party withdrew from the alliance, thereby depriving the Prodi government of its narrow majority. With the resignation of Romano Prodi as Prime Minister and the dissolution of Parliament on February 6, 2008, L'Unione effectively dissolved. In the early parliamentary elections on April 13 and 14, 2008, the center-left parties no longer ran together.

The new Partito Democratico , in which the former parties Democratici di Sinistra , La Margherita and the Movimento Repubblicani Europei as well as other splinter parties were united in 2007, stood for election under the top candidate Walter Veltroni only with the allies Italia dei Valori and Radicali Italiani. The communist parties PRC and PdCI, the Greens and the Sinistra Democratica (a left-wing split from the DS) competed with their own list under the name La Sinistra - L'Arcobaleno . In 2007, the SDI was absorbed into the new Partito Socialista , which also appeared as an individual list. The scandal-ridden Popolari UDEUR did not run for the election at all.

For the 2013 parliamentary elections , a broad center-left alliance was formed again, but called “Italia. Bene Comune ”was called.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Puglia, primarie con sorpresa. Nichi Vendola played boccia. In: laRepubblica.it , January 17, 2005.