Christian Democracy (Italy, 1997)

Christian Democracy (Democrazia Cristiana, DC) is a minor christian democratic and strongly social-conservative Italian political party in Italy. The current leader of the party is Giuseppe Pizza.

The party proposed itself as the core of a refoundation of the original Christian Democracy and to effect the reunification of all the various christian-democratic parties in Italy. It was once part of the The Union centre-left coalition, but then distanced itself from it promoting an autonomous path and is now a minor ally of The People of Freedom.

History

The party was founded on 23 December 1997 as Rebirth of Christian Democracy (Rinascita della Democrazia Cristiana, RDC) by Flaminio Piccoli and Clelio Darida. In December 2001 it took the current name. In the 2001 general election the party sided with European Democracy of Sergio D'Antoni, while a splinter group led by Alfredo Vito, the Christian Democratic Party, formed an alliance with Forza Italia.

Between June 2002 and December 2003 the party was led by Angelo Sandri. In the 2004 European Parliament election, the party ran under the banner of New Country, winning only 0.2% of the vote. This alliance was not agreed by Sandri, who was ousted by new secretary Giuseppe Pizza in July 2004, leading him to launch his own "Christian Democracy", the so-called Party of Christian Democracy.

Since then there had been several disputes between Pizza and Sandri on the property of the name and the symbol, which was also claimed by...
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