Democratic Initiative (Italy)

Democratic Initiative (Iniziativa Democratica, ID) is a coalition of small political parties in Italy.

It was launched on 11 October 2008 by Clemente Mastella and Publio Fiori, respectively leaders of UDEUR–Populars and the Christian Democratic Refoundation. The coalition, which describes itself as a "network", is aimed at representing those centrist parties which lost representation in the Italian Parliament in the 2008 general election or never gained such representation.^[1][2]

DI can be seen as an evolution of the Christian Democratic Federation (FDC), but in this occasion Mastella and Fiori decided to open the coalition also to all the centrists, the conservatives, the liberals and the social democrats who wanted to participate.

Although the participating parties and groups are very different one from each other, they are nostalgic of the First Republic and oppose what they call the two-party system between The People of Freedom and the Democratic Party. As most of these parties and groups are rooted in Southern Italy, they generally oppose the introduction of any form of federalism, despite proposing a new kind of politics based on a bottom-top approach and an alliance between local independent citizen' lists and seeking to represent primarily a part of Italy, the South.^[3][4]

At its founding convention, Democratic Initiative gathered in Rome politicians representing many small parties, including notably the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, the Italian Liberal Party, the Christian Democracy, the Christian Democratic Party, The Italian Socialists and many others. During the convention, some speakers hinted that Pier Ferdinando Casini could become the leader of such a centrist movement with its Union of the Centre (UdC) and in fact some participating parties are also close to UdC.

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