Partito Popolare Italiano (1994)
The Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI, Italian People's Party) was a Christian Democratic party in Italy that existed from 1994 to 2002.
history
It emerged from the rump of the Democrazia Cristiana , which was dominant after 1945 , after it had massively lost trust as a result of the Tangentopoli corruption scandal and many members had switched to other parties (including La Rete , Patto Segni , Forza Italia , CCD ). The name was changed on January 22, 1994 and made reference to the historic Partito Popolare Italiano from 1919-26, a forerunner of the DC. The first secretary (roughly equivalent to a chairman) of the PPI was initially Mino Martinazzoli , who had previously been the secretary of the DC. The party presidents of the CCD and PPI agreed on a division of the DC's assets, according to which the CCD received 15% and the PPI "inherited" the rest.
In the parliamentary elections in March 1994 , the first election of the "Second Republic", she entered an electoral alliance with the Patto Segni under the name Patto per l'Italia , which is in the middle between the center-right camp Silvio Berlusconi and the center-left camp led by the post-communist left- wing democrats (PDS). The PPI received 11.1% of the list of votes (18.6 percentage points less than the DC in 1992), the most significant loss ever for any party in an election in Italy and one of the most violent in a ruling party in a Western European country. Due to the new electoral law, according to which only a quarter of the seats in the Camera dei deputati were allocated directly to constituency candidates according to proportional representation and three quarters according to majority voting, the impact on parliamentary representation was even more devastating: the PPI received only 33 of the 630 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 27 of the 315 in the Senate. The PPI went into opposition to the center-right Berlusconi I government. After the election, Martinazzoli resigned as secretary; after a four-month transition period, he was succeeded by Rocco Buttiglione . In July 1995, the Cristiani Democratici Uniti (CDU) split off from the PPI under Buttiglione to join the center-right camp. Gerardo Bianco became the new secretary .
In the early elections in June 1996, the members of the PPI stood on the Popolari per Prodi list under the leadership of Romano Prodi (who, however, was not a member of the PPI), which was part of the center-left alliance L'Ulivo . The PDS, which emerged from the Communist Party, also belonged to this; For the first time since the Historic Compromise of the 1970s, Christian Democrats and (former) Communists came together in the same political camp. The Prodi list only got 6.8% of the vote, but thanks to the electoral alliance, the PPI received 67 seats in the House of Representatives and 31 in the Senate. In the center-left governments that were subsequently formed (Prodi I, D'Alema I and II and Amato), the PPI received three to four ministries each. Franco Marini , former general secretary of the Christian trade union CISL , took over the office of party secretary in 1997. In the 1999 European elections , the PPI crashed again and only received 4.2% of the vote. Marini was then replaced as secretary by Pierluigi Castagnetti .
As in the regional elections in 2000, the PPI competed in the 2001 parliamentary elections with the La Margherita electoral list , which included several small parties from the center and left center: RI , I Democratici and UDEUR . This in turn was part of the center-left coalition L'Ulivo . Although La Margherita was significantly stronger than the Prodi list with 11.4% of the vote, the center-left lost the election overall, and only 43 PPI members moved into the Chamber of Deputies and 19 into the Senate.
On March 24, 2002, PPI, RI and Democratici (but not UDEUR) merged to form the Democrazia è Libertà - La Margherita party . The PPI then ceased to exist.
International connections
Like its predecessor DC, the PPI was a member of the Christian Democratic International and the European People's Party .
Important members
- Beniamino Andreatta , Foreign Minister (1993–94), Defense Minister (1996–98)
- Rosy Bindi , Minister of Health (1996-2000)
- Rocco Buttiglione , party secretary (1994-95)
- Lorenzo Dellai , Governor of Trentino (1999–2012)
- Ciriaco De Mita , former Prime Minister (1988–89); MEP (1999-2004)
- Dario Franceschini , Deputy Party Chairman (1997–1999); later became Minister of Culture (2014-18)
- Enrico Letta , Minister for European Community Policy (1998–99), Minister for Economic Affairs (1999–2001); later became Prime Minister (2013-14)
- Nicola Mancino , President of the Senate (1996-2001)
- Franco Marini , Party Secretary (1997–99), MEP (1999–2004); later became President of the Senate (2006-08)
- Sergio Mattarella , Deputy Prime Minister (1998–99), Minister of Defense (1999–2001); later became President (since 2015)
- Matteo Renzi , Provincial Secretary in Florence (1999–2001); later became Prime Minister (2014-18)
- Rosa Russo Iervolino , party president (1994); Minister of Education (1992–94), Minister of the Interior (1998–99); Mayor of Naples (2001-11)
- Patrizia Toia , Minister for European Community Policy (1999–2000), Minister for Relations with Parliament (2000–01)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ai centristi 15 per cento dell 'ex DC. In: Corriere della Sera , February 1, 1994, p. 4.