Leader Ricardo Antonio Merlo Ideology Centrism Chamber of Deputies 2 / 630 | Founded 8 March 2008 Political position Centre Senate 1 / 315 | |
The Associative Movement Italians Abroad (Movimento Associativo Italiani all'Estero, MAIE) is an Italian political party representing Italians abroad. Based in Argentina and active mainly in South America, the MAIE is a centrist party.
History
The party emerged from the split of the left-wing of the Italian Associations in South America (AISA) in 2008.
In the 2008 general election the MAIE won one seat in the Chamber of Deputies for Ricardo Antonio Merlo, elected to the Chamber for AISA in 2006, and one seat in the Senate for Mirella Giai, a former member and candidate of the Democrats of the Left (DS). Both Merlo and Giai joined forces with centrist and centre-right groups, notably including the Liberal Democrats (LD), with whom the MAIE formed a joint electoral list for the 2009 European Parliament election, and the Union of the Centre (UdC). Giai was a member of For the Autonomies group, along with the UdC, for the entire parliamentary term.
In the 2013 general election the party elected three deputies (two, Merlo and Mario Borghese, in its own lists and a third, Fucsia Nissoli, in With Monti for Italy's list for North America) and one senator (Claudio Zin). After the election, Nissoli left, while another deputy (Roberta Bueno, elected with the South American Union Italian Emigrants, USEI) joined forces for two years. During the parliamentary term, MAIE deputies formed an alliance with the Alliance for Italy (ApI) from 2013 to 2015 and with Liberal Popular Alliance – Autonomies since 2015, while senator Zin was a member of For the Autonomies. For the 2014 European Parliament election the MAIE formed a joint electoral list with I Change (IC), a split from Lega Nord (LN).