Christian Democracy (Italy) - Factions

Factions

The original centrist and liberal-conservative leadership of Alcide De Gasperi, Giuseppe Pella, Ezio Vanoni and Mario Scelba, was soon replaced by the progressives led by Amintore Fanfani. They were opposed to a right wing whose main leader was Antonio Segni. The party's left wing, with its roots in the left of the late Italian People's Party (Giovanni Gronchi, Achille Grandi and controversial Fernando Tambroni), was reinforced by new leaders such as Giuseppe Dossetti, Giorgio La Pira, Giuseppe Lazzati and Fanfani himself. Most of them were social democrats by European standards.

The party was often led by centrist figures unaffiliated to any faction such as Aldo Moro, Mariano Rumor (both closer to the centre-left) and Giulio Andreotti (closer to the centre-right). Moreover often, if the government was led by a centre-right Christian Democrat, the party was led by a left-winger and viceversa. This was what happened in the 1950s when Fanfani was party secretary and the government was led by centre-right figures such as Scelba and Segni and in the late 1970s when Benigno Zaccagnini, a progressive, led the party and Andreotti the government: this custom, in clear contrast with the principles of a Westminster system, deeply weakened the office of the Prime Minister, turning the Italian political system into a particracy (partitocrazia).

From the 1980s until 1992 the party was divided between the centre-right led by Arnaldo Forlani (supported also by the party's right-wing) and the centre-left led by Ciriaco De Mita (whose supporters included trade unionists and the internal left), with Andreotti holding the balance. De Mita, who led the party from 1982 to 1989, curiously tried to transform the party into a mainstream "conservative party" in line with the European People's Party in order to preserve party unity. He was replaced by Forlani in 1989, after that he had become Prime Minister in 1988. The disagreements between De Mita and Forlani resulted in a return of Andreotti as Prime Minister from 1989 to 1992.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of great ideologies and ultimately the Tangentopoli scandals, the heterogeneous nature of the party led it to its collapse. The bulk of the DC joined the new Italian People's Party (PPI), but immediately several centre-right elements led by Pier Ferdinando Casini joined the Christian Democratic Centre (CCD), while others directly joined Forza Italia. A split from the PPI, the United Christian Democrats (CDU), joined Forza Italia and the CCD in the centre-right Pole of Freedoms coalition (later becoming the Pole for Freedoms), while the PPI was a founding member of The Olive Tree centre-left coalition in 1996. Today, former Christian Democrats are divided between The People of Freedom, the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats and the Democratic Party.