| Country: | Italy |
| Native Name: | Democrazia è Libertà – La Margherita |
| Foundation: | 24 March 2002 (party) |
| Dissolution: | 14 October 2007 |
| Leader: | Francesco Rutelli |
| Headquarters: | Via S. Andrea delle Fratte 16, Rome |
| Merger: | Italian People's Party The Democrats Italian Renewal |
| Merged: | Democratic Party |
| Youth Wing: | Young People of the Daisy |
| Membership Year: | 2007 |
| Membership: | 430,000[1] |
| National: | The Olive Tree (2002–07) The Union (2004–07) |
| International: | Alliance of Democrats (2004–07) |
| European: | European Democratic Party (2004–07) |
| Europarl: | Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (2004–07) |
| Colors: | Green Azure |
| Newspaper: | Europa |
Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (Italian: Democrazia è Libertà – La Margherita, DL), commonly known simply as The Daisy (La Margherita), was a centrist[2] [3] [4] political party in Italy. The party was formed from the merger of three parties within the centre-left coalition: the Italian People's Party, The Democrats and Italian Renewal.[4] The party president and leader was Francesco Rutelli, former mayor of Rome and prime ministerial candidate during the 2001 general election for The Olive Tree coalition, within which The Daisy electoral list won 14.5% of the national vote.
The Daisy became a single party in February 2002. It was set up by former left-leaning Christian Democrats,[5] [6] [7] centrists,[8] social-liberals[7] (former Liberals and former Republicans), as well as other left-wing politicians from the former Italian Socialist Party and Federation of the Greens.
On 14 October 2007, DL merged with the Democrats of the Left to form the Democratic Party (PD).
The idea of uniting the centrist components of The Olive Tree, which were divided in many parties, was discussed at least from 1996. In the 1996 general election, there were actually two centrist lists within the Italian centre-left coalition: the Populars for Prodi, an electoral list including the Italian People's Party (PPI), Democratic Union (UD), the Italian Republican Party (PRI) and the South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP), and that of Italian Renewal (RI), including the Segni Pact (PS) and Italian Socialists (SI), which later merged into the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI) in 1998. In 1998 splinters from the centre-right coalition formed the Democratic Union for the Republic (UDR), later transformed into Union of Democrats for Europe (UDEUR), to support the D'Alema I Cabinet. In 1999 splinters of PPI, UD and other groups formed The Democrats (Dem).
Between 1998 and 2000, there were several precursors of such idea at the regional and local level in Northeast Italy, notably the Reformist Popular Centre in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the Daisy Civic List in Trentino, the Autonomist Federation in Aosta Valley and Together for Veneto in Veneto. Initially some of these experiments were intended to include both Christian-inspired parties and secular ones, such as SDI and PRI.[9] However, on 12 October 2000, only PPI, Dem, UDEUR and RI agreed to join forces with a joint list called "The Daisy" for the 2001 general election. The Daisy, led by Francesco Rutelli (who was also candidate for Prime Minister for the whole centre-left), won 14.5% of the vote, only two points less than the Democrats of the Left (DS).
Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy was established as a single party during the founding congress of Parma in March 2002. On that occasion the Italian People's Party, The Democrats and Italian Renewal merged to form the new party, while the UDEUR decided to remain separate.
In the 2006 general election, The Daisy was member of the victorious alliance The Union, and won 39 out of 315 senators. The Olive Tree list, of which DL was a member since the 2004 European Parliament election, won 220 seats out of 630 in the Chamber of Deputies. On 14 October 2007, DL, DS and numerous minor parties merged to form the Democratic Party (PD), a unitary centre-left party in anticipation of a move to a two-party system.[2]
Democracy Is Freedom was a pro-European centrist party, with a strong support among Catholics, especially progressive ones: the party was described as "social Christian".[10] The party put together social conservatives with social progressives, economic liberals and social democrats.[11] Many former members of the Italian People's Party, one of the ancestor parties of DL, were members or close supporters of the Italian Confederation of Workers' Trade Unions (CISL), the Catholic trade union.
After the 2004 European elections the new party decided not to become a member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR) or of the European People's Party, but founded the European Democratic Party (EDP) together with the Union for French Democracy. In the European Parliament, the EDP and ELDR Europarties established the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group (ALDE).
In 2005, DL participated in the foundation of the Alliance of Democrats, a worldwide network of centrist parties, along with the New Democrat Coalition of the United States Democratic Party, the EDP member parties and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats.
Leading members of the party included:
DL was mainly composed of four factions, the first three of them supporting Francesco Rutelli's leadership:
The electoral results of Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy in the 10 most populated regions of Italy are shown in the table below. As DL was founded in 2002, the electoral results from 1994 to 2001 refer to the combined result of the precursor parties.
The results of 1994 (general) refer to the combined result of PPI, Segni Pact and AD, those of 1994 to the combined result of PPI and Pact of Democrats (joint-list of Segni Pact and AD, including also SI), those of 1996 (general and Sicilian regional) to the combined result of the joint-list of PPI and UD and RI (whose list was composed of the Segni Pact and SI), those of 1999 (European) and 2000 (regional) to the combined result of PPI, Dem and RI, those of 2001 (general and Sicilian regional) the DL federation (comprising at the time PPI, Dem, UDEUR and RI).
From 2004 (European) the results refer to DL, formed by PPI, Dem and RI, after the defection of UDEUR. The result for the 2006 general election refers to the election for the Senate, indeed DL contested the election for the Chamber of Deputies in a joint list with Democrats of the Left.
| 1994 general | 1995 regional | 1996 general | 1999 European | 2000 regional | 2001 general | 2004 European | 2005 regional | 2006 general | ||
| Piedmont | 13.1 | 9.7 | 9.7 | 11.3 | 7.9 | 15.1 | with Ulivo | 10.4 | 11.7 | |
| Lombardy | 15.0 | 9.4 | 10.4 | 10.1 | with Ulivo | 15.1 | with Ulivo | with Ulivo | 10.0 | |
| Veneto | 21.1 | 15.0 | 13.3 | 12.7 | 13.7 | 14.9 | with Ulivo | with Ulivo | 11.9 | |
| Emilia-Romagna | 14.8 | 9.3 | 11.8 | 10.9 | 7.7 | 15.5 | with Ulivo | with Ulivo | 9.4 | |
| Tuscany | 15.7 | 6.4 | 10.0 | 9.1 | 6.9 | 13.4 | with Ulivo | with Ulivo | 9.0 | |
| Lazio | 14.4 | 6.0 | 10.0 | 11.9 | 9.6 | 16.1 | with Ulivo | with Ulivo | 9.1 | |
| Campania | 16.8 | 13.8 | 12.2 | 17.9 | 18.7 | 12.1 | with Ulivo | 16.0 | 12.8 | |
| Apulia | 22.2[12] | 13.6 | 8.9 | 16.7 | 13.7 | 16.1 | with Ulivo | 9.7 | 11.1 | |
| Calabria | 19.8 | 15.1 | 11.0 | 18.0 | 13.4 | 10.7 | with Ulivo | 14.5 | 10.3 | |
| Sicily | 14.2 | 12.3 (1996) | 10.1 | 19.6 | 12.3 (2001) | 13.9 | with Ulivo | 12.0 (2006) | 11.8 | |
| ITALY | 18.9 | - | 11.1 | 14.6 | - | 14.5 | - | - | 10.5 |
| Chamber of Deputies | |||||||||||
| width=13% | Election year | width=16% | Votes | width=6% | % | width=1% | Seats | width=8% | +/− | width=18% | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 5,391,827 (3rd) | 14.5 | |||||||||
| 2006 | – | ||||||||||
| Senate of the Republic | |||||||||||
| width=13% | Election year | width=16% | Votes | width=6% | % | width=1% | Seats | width=8% | +/− | width=18% | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | with Ulivo | – | |||||||||
| 2006 | 3,664,622 (4th) | 10.5 | |||||||||
| European Parliament | |||||||||||
| width=13% | Election year | width=16% | Votes | width=6% | % | width=1% | Seats | width=8% | +/− | width=18% | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | with Ulivo | – | |||||||||