President Bruno Tabacci Political position Centre to Centre-left | Founded 28 December 2012 | |
Split from Alliance for Italy,
Italy of Values Ideology Centrism
Christian democracy
Christian left
Social liberalism National affiliation Italy. Common Good (2013)
with PD (2013–present)
European Choice (2014)
For Italy (2014–2015)
with Demo.S (2014–present) | ||
The Democratic Centre (Italian: Centro Democratico, CD) is a centrist and Christian leftist political party in Italy. Its leader is Bruno Tabacci.
Contents
History
The party was launched on 28 December 2012 as an electoral list and immediately joined the centre-left Italy. Common Good coalition, which was formed to contest the 2013 Italian general election. Tabacci participated in the 2012 centre-left primary election, obtained 1.4% and, after that, threw his support behind the winner, Pier Luigi Bersani of the Democratic Party (PD). The CD originally included large chunks of Alliance for Italy (ApI), led by Francesco Rutelli and Tabacci, and Rights and Freedom (DL), a breakaway group from Italy of Values (IdV) led by Massimo Donadi. Regarding ApI, most leading members and incumbent MPs of the party joined the CD, while Rutelli chose not to be a candidate.
In the general election the CD gained 0.5% of the vote both for the Chamber and the Senate, returning six deputies (Franco Bruno, Roberto Capelli, Anielo Formisano, Carmelo Lo Monte, Pino Pisicchio and Tabacci). In the event, the party was stronger in Basilicata (4.4%), Calabria (2.0%), and Apulia (1.5%). In the Basilicata regional election a CD–United Populars joint list, won 5.0% of the vote and ex-IdV Nicola Benedetto was re-elected in the Regional Council.
In March 2014 it was announced that the CD would contest the 2014 European Parliament election within European Choice (SE), an electoral list in support of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) comprising Civic Choice (SC), Act to Stop the Decline and the Italian Liberal Party. The list received just 0.7% of the vote, and failed to return any MEPs.
In June 2014 Pisicchio, the party's vice president, left over disagreements with Tabacci. In October also the other vice president, Formisano, left the CD and returned to IdV. Of the six deputies in 2013 only two (Tabacci and Capelli) stayed in the party (Bruno remained loyal to ApI all the way, while Lo Monte ended up in the Italian Socialist Party).
In 2014 the CD formed a joint group with Solidary Democracy (Demo.S), an alike outfit formed by splinters from SC and later the Populars for Italy (PpI), led by Lorenzo Dellai and Andrea Olivero. At the local level, the party formed various centrist alliances with Demo.S, SC, the Union of the Centre (UdC) and/or Reality Italy for the 2014 and 2015 regional elections (two regional councillors were elected in Campania).
In late 2015 Domenico Rossi, a retired general, deputy (SC and PpI) and undersecretary of Defence (Renzi Cabinet and later Gentiloni Cabinet), joined the CD. In January 2017 Mario Catania, a former minister of Agriculture, member of the UdC and later of SC, became the party's fourth deputy.