Italy - Political Parties
Minor Italian national parties included from left to right on the political spectrum, the Proletarian Democracy, the Radical Party, and the Italian Liberal Party (PRI). There are also several regional parties, of which only the South Tyrolese Popular Party (SUP) was significant.
Lega Nord (North League, LN)
Lega Nord (North League, LN), whose complete name is Lega Nord per l'Indipendenza della Padania (North League for Independence of Padania), is a political party in Italy founded in 1991 as a federation of several regional parties of Northern and Central Italy, most of which had arisen and expanded their share of the electorate over the 1980s. Its political program advocates the transformation of Italy into a federal State, fiscal federalism and greater regional autonomy, especially for the Northern regions, which they call Padania; at times it has advocated secession. Prior to the party's adoption of the term, Padania was infrequently used to name the Padan-Venetian Plain and was promoted since 1963 by well-known Italian sport journalist Gianni Brera as a modern name for Cisalpine Gaul.
The founding parties of Lega Nord were Lega Lombarda, Liga Veneta, Piemont Autonomista, Uniun Ligure, Lega Emiliano-Romagnola, Alleanza Toscana, plus the newly formed regional/provincial parties in Friuli, Province of Trieste, Province of Trento, Province of Bolzano, Aosta Valley, Marche and Umbria. The long-standing leader of the party is Umberto Bossi.
The Movement for Autonomies (Movimento per le Autonomie, MpA)
The Movement for Autonomies (Movimento per le Autonomie, MpA) is a minor Christian-Democratic and regionalist political party. It demands economic development and greater autonomy for Sicily, mainly, and for other regions of Southern Italy. The party is led by Raffaele Lombardo, President of Sicily. The party was founded on 30 April 2005 as Movement for Autonomy (Movimento per l'Autonomia) by Sicilian splinters from the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC) and other centre-right parties, notably Forza Italia, the Italian Republican Party and the New Italian Socialist Party (NPSI).
In January 2008, MpA formed a political pact with Italy of the Center (IdC), under which Vincenzo Scotti, leader of IdC, became president of the party. In the 2008 general election, the party won 1.1% of the vote (7.4% in Sicily) and obtained 8 deputies and 2 senators, due to the alliance with The People of Freedom and Lega Nord. After the election the MpA joined Berlusconi IV Cabinet. More important, in the Sicilian regional election Lombardo was elected President of the region by a landslide and the MpA was the third largest party with 13.8% of the vote (21.8% if also the vote for Lombardo's personal list and the Autonomist Democrats) and 15 regional deputies.
Italy of Values (Italia dei Valori, IdV)
Italy of Values (Italia dei Valori, IdV) is a center-left and anti-corruption Italian political party, headed by former Mani pulite magistrate Antonio Di Pietro. The party is a member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR). The party is a supporter of legality, law and order, the police forces, first-past-the-post, federalism, corporate reform, lowering the costs of politics, improving the efficiency of public services, fighting corruption, simplifying trials bureaucracy to achieve faster verdicts and regulating conflict of interest.
During the Prodi II Cabinet IdV was the most centrist party in the center-left coalition and sometimes, despite its harsh criticism of Berlusconi, it switched sides in Parliament on some key issues. Di Pietro, after he was refused entry the Democratic Party, and before several clashes with Clemente Mastella, even proposed an electoral list between its party, the UDEUR Populars and the Union of Christian and Center Democrats, ruling out any future alliance with the far left (Federation of the Greens, Party of Italian Communists and Communist Refoundation Party).
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