Democrats of the Left (Italian: Democratici di Sinistra) is the main Italian left-wing political party, part of the Ulivo electorial coalition.

It was founded in 1991, with the name PDS (Partito Democratico della Sinistra), after the reshaping of the Partito Comunista Italiano into a moderate-left political party. Its first secretary was Achille Occhetto, who left office in 1994, after the defeat in national and european elections against the right-wing coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi.

Current leadership

The current secretary is Piero Fassino, elected by the 61,8% of party members votes during the second National Congress in november 2001. Piero Fassino was the candidate of a mainstream Third Way tendency. The candidacy of Giovanni Berlinguer, endorsed by radical democrats, democratic socialists and the CGIL trade union, gained 34,1% of party members votes. The right wing of the party, lead by Enrico Morando , gained the 4,1%.

Piero Fassino has been re-elected during the third National Congress, in february 2005, by the 79,1% of party members votes. No other candidates were present, but left-wing candidates ran for congressional delegates with a 14,56% of party members votes won by the DS Left - returning to win, 3,98% by the DS Left for socialism and 2,36% by the Ecologist Left.

Internal structure

Inside the party are several organized political tendency associations. On the right wing the Liberal association have a strongly moderate Third Way or Radical middle political agenda.

The left-wing opposition is lead by the DS Left - returning to win (Italian: Sinistra DS - per tornare a vincere), a left-of-Third Way democratic socialist tendency. Others in left-wing opposition are the smaller DS Left for socialism (Italian: Sinistra DS per il socialismo), left-wing democratic socialists, and the Ecologist Left (Italian: Sinistra Ecologista), left-wing environmentalists.

The core of the social democratic party majority isn't related to a specific tendency association, although several smaller movements, splits of former centrist or center-left italian parties, relate to it. These are the Labourists - Liberal Socialists (Italian: Laburisti - Socialisti Liebrali), the Reformist Europe (Italian: Europa Riformista) and the sicilian Reformist Movement (Italian: Movimento Riformista) all from Italian Socialist Party , the Republican Left (Italian: Sinistra Repubblicana) from Italian Republican Party and the Social Christians (Italian: Cristiano Sociali) from the left-wing of Democrazia Cristiana.

Inside the party, there is often a somewhat simplistic distinction between reformers (riformisti) and radicals (massimalisti), indicating respectively the mainstream or the left-wing area, also called correntone.

In the European Parliament it has 12 MEPs, who sit as part of the Party of European Socialists group.

List of party secretaries

• 1991-1994 Achille Occhetto
• 1994-1998 Massimo D'Alema
• 1998-2001 Walter Veltroni
• since 2001 Piero Fassino

See also

• Politics of Italy
• List of political parties in Italy
• List of political parties

External link

• Party web site