Leader Massimo Artini Split from Five Star Movement | Founded January 2015 Political position Left-wing | |
Headquarters Via Della Missione 10, Rome Ideology Social democracy
Direct democracy | ||
Free Alternative (Alternativa Libera, AL) is a political party in Italy, active mainly as a sub-group within the Mixed Group of the Chamber of Deputies, along with Possible, another left-wing party.
The party was formed by splinters of the Five Star Movement, which included left-wing, centrist, and right-wing elements.
History
The party was launched in January 2015 by ten deputies who had left (or had been expelled from) the Five Star Movement (M5S), a populist party which had come first in the 2013 general election, over disagreements with Beppe Grillo's and Gianroberto Casaleggio's leadership. According to AL's leader, Walter Rizzetto, at its foundation, the party counted also on seven senators (possibly including Italy Work in Progress and the X Movement), but the notion was never confirmed by the Senate's website and other news sources. Besides Rizzetto, the other main leader of the party was Massimo Artini.
In April 2015, Gessica Rostellato, one of the party's ten deputies, left in order to join the Democratic Party and, a few days later, was replaced by Toni Matarrelli, a splinter from Left Ecology Freedom, in the group.
As of mid-July 2015, the party looked divided between its left-wing, led by Artini, whose members had been crescently involved in a dialogue with Giuseppe Civati and were pondering over joining his Possible party, and its right-wing, led by Rizzetto, a conservative liberal, who had been building bridges with Lega Nord and Brothers of Italy (FdI) instead.
In November the majority of the party (including six deputies: Massimo Artini, Marco Baldassarre, Eleonora Bechis, Toni Matarrelli, Samuele Segoni and Tancredi Turco), joined forces with Possible and formed a joint sub-group within the Mixed Group of the Chamber. This caused the split of four deputies (Walter Rizzetto, Sebastiano Barbanti, Mara Mucci and Aris Prodani). In the meantime, it was announced that Rizzetto would participate in the creation of Our Land, a right-wing party that would be established from the ashes of FdI by January 2016. Barbanti, Mucci and Prodani looked set to join the centre-left Democratic Party. Shortly after, Matarrelli directly joined Possible.