L'Ulivo

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
logo

L'Ulivo ( Italian for olive tree was) a center-left - Alliance in Italy , which existed from 1995 by 2007. From 1996 to 2001 and again from 2006, L'Ulivo was the government or was significantly involved in it. Ultimately, several parties of the L'Ulivo alliance merged in 2007 into a single party: the Partito Democratico .

prehistory

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Italian political landscape was in a state of upheaval: parties that had shaped the country's politics during the previous decades fell apart or renamed themselves and changed their political orientation; new parties emerged and gained importance. The beginning was made by the Partito Comunista Italiano , which renamed communism in several steps from 1989-91, renamed itself Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS; “Democratic Left Party”) and adopted a social-democratic orientation. From 1992 the dominant since the end of World War II was the Christian Democrats (DC), as well as its social democratic and liberal coalition partner ( PSI , PSDI , PRI , PLI ) by Mani pulite -Ermittlungen and the corruption scandal Tangentopoli shaken. Many members and voters turned their backs on the five governing parties ( Pentapartito ) . The remaining rump of the DC - predominantly members of the Christian social workers wing - tried to reinvent themselves as Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI). Numerous Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Liberals also defected to Silvio Berlusconi's suddenly created liberal-populist party Forza Italia .

In addition, a new right to vote , the so-called matarellum, was introduced in 1993. The previously pure proportional representation (without a threshold clause) was replaced by a mixed electoral system in which three quarters of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies were allocated directly in the constituencies according to the majority principle. This right to vote favored mergers of several parties in order to increase their chances of obtaining direct mandates. The 1994 parliamentary election - the first with the new suffrage - was won by a center-right alliance made up of Berlusconi's recently founded Forza Italia, the neo-fascists from the MSI / Alleanza Nazionale and the northern Italian protest party Lega Nord , who had been converted into national conservatives . Both the center alliance Patto per l'Italia (from PPI, PRI, the new reform party Patto Segni and former socialists like Giuliano Amato and Giulio Tremonti ) and the left Alleanza dei Progressisti (from PDS, PSI, Rifondazione Comunista , Greens , Christian Socialists , the anti-Mafia party La Rete and the left-liberal Alleanza Democratica ) were inferior. However, Berlusconi's government coalition broke up again after a few months. Subsequently, the previous Finance Minister Lamberto Dini formed a transitional government made up of non-party technocrats. This was based in Parliament on the votes of the Alleanza dei Progressisti (but without the Communists), PPI and Lega Nord.

founding

Romano Prodi, initiator of L'Ulivo (1996)

In this situation, several parties from the political center and moderate left came together in February to March 1995 on the initiative of the non-party (formerly Christian Democratic) economics professor Romano Prodi , whose main aim was to prevent Berlusconi from being re-elected. The olive tree was chosen as a symbol because, in Prodi's words, “it is strong, resilient and firmly rooted in the earth. It is the tree of Mediterranean Europe [...] loves the sun and withstands winter. "

The original member parties were:

There was also the Movimento per l'Ulivo , also known as Comitati per l'Italia che vogliamo ("Committees for the Italy we want") or colloquially Comitati Prodi ("Prodi Committees"), in which followers Prodis and of his L'Ulivo project that did not belong to any of the parties mentioned. In 1999 they joined the I Democratici party , whose model was the Democratic Party of the USA and which was led by Prodi and Arturo Parisi .

L'Ulivo took part in the regional elections in April 1995 for the first time. The center-left alliance won in 9 of the 15 regions with normal status, including Lazio , Emilia-Romagna , Tuscany , Liguria and Marche (the autonomous regions did not vote ).

Another member party was the liberal reform party Rinnovamento Italiano (RI), founded by the then independent Prime Minister Lamberto Dini .

Government 1996-2001

During this time, the Ulivo provided three prime ministers: Romano Prodi (1996–98), Massimo D'Alema (1998–2000) and Giuliano Amato (2000–01).

During this phase there was a certain consolidation among the numerous member parties of L'Ulivo: Most of the social democratic and left components (PDS, FL, MCU, CS) merged in 1998 to form the Democratici di Sinistra (DS; "Left Democrats") ; the more centralized, Christian Democratic and social liberal elements (PPI, I Democratici, RI) formed La Margherita in 2001 .

opposition

Francesco Rutelli, top candidate in the 2001 election

In the 2001 parliamentary elections , L'Ulivo ran with the top candidate Francesco Rutelli from the Democratici. Although the center-left alliance increased slightly in votes (43.2% of the votes in the majority election), Berlusconi's re-assembled center-right coalition became significantly stronger. Then L'Ulivo was in opposition.

Campaign booth for L'Ulivo in Como, 2004

At the 2004 European elections , L'Ulivo ran for the first time with a uniform list - Uniti nell'Ulivo - with the EU Commission President Romano Prodi as the top candidate. It received 31.1% of the vote and 24 of the 78 Italian seats. Of the elected members of the European Parliament, 16 (members of DS and SDI and the non-party members Lilli Gruber and Michele Santoro ) joined the Socialist Group , eight (members of Margherita and MRE ) joined the liberal ALDE group .

On the occasion of the regional elections in April 2005, L'Unione was launched as an expanded center-left alliance to which, in addition to the L'Ulivo parties, the Rifondazione Comunista , Federazione dei Verdi (Greens), Partito dei Comunisti Italiani (PdCI), Popolari UDEUR and Italia dei Valori belonged. In most regions there were common lists from Uniti nell'Ulivo ; in Campania , Piedmont and Apulia , however, Democratici di Sinistra and La Margherita competed with separate lists within the center-left bloc. Overall, L'Unione won a national average of 48.7% of the votes and won in 12 of 14 regions (all except Lombardy and Veneto).

Merged into L'Unione and Partito Democratico 2005–07

In the run-up to the national parliamentary elections in 2006 , L'Unione held a primary election for the top candidate in October 2005, in which over 4 million citizens took part. The L'Ulivo leader Romano Prodi prevailed with 74.2% against the communist Fausto Bertinotti and representatives of smaller parties. In the parliamentary election itself, a joint L'Ulivo list (consisting of DS and Margherita) took part in the larger L'Unione block. The L'Ulivo list came to 31.3% of the vote, overall the L'Unione block won the election wafer-thin with 49.8% against 49.7% for Berlusconi's center-right coalition. Subsequently, Romano Prodi again headed a center-left government in which DS, Margherita and non-party members of L'Ulivo made up 18 of 25 ministers.

In October 2007, the alliance L'Ulivo became a unified party called Partito Democratico (PD, Democratic Party).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Romano Prodi: governare l'Italia. Manifesto per il cambiamento. Donzelli editore, 1995, p. 11. Original quote: L'Olivo è forte, resistant, ben radicato nella sua terra. È l'albero di un'Europa mediterranea […] Ama il sole e resiste all'inverno.