Secretary Alfredo Covelli | President Achille Lauro | |
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Founded April 11, 1959 (1959-04-11) Dissolved July 11, 1972; 44 years ago (1972-07-11) Merger of People's Monarchist Party, National Monarchist Party Merged into Italian Social Movement | ||
The Italian Democratic Party of Monarchist Unity (Italian: Partito Democratico Italiano di Unità Monarchica, PDIUM) was an Italian political party of conservative and monarchist's goals.
History
After 1961 the PDIUM called itself as continuation of the Italian Democratic Party (Partito Democratico Italiano). It was founded in 1959 by the union of the People's Monarchist Party and the National Monarchist Party.
The new party, like its predecessors, was hampered by provisions in the Italian Constitution of 1946 making it all but impossible to restore the monarchy. The document specifically forbade a referendum on changing the republican form of government, and (until 2002) barred male members of the House of Savoy from returning to Italy. It was never able to repeat the results of its predecessors: electoral support for its monarchist cause shrank in the 1963 general election (1.8%) and in those of 1968 (1.3%), due to the successes of the Italian Liberal Party (respectively 7.0 and 5.8%).
In 1972 PDIUM merged in the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI). Alfredo Covelli, long-time monarchist leader, was elected president of MSI. In 1976 Covelli led a moderate split of MSI and established National Democracy.