The
Party of Socialists and Democrats (, PSD) is a
centre-left,
social-democratic political party in
San Marino. It is a member of the
Socialist International and its current-day Italian counterpart is the
Democratic Party.
It was formed in 2005 by a merger of the
Sammarinese Socialist Party (PSS), the oldest political party in the country, and the
Party of Democrats (PD). At the party's formation it had 27 of 60 seats in the
Grand and General Council, which was reduced to 20 in the
2006 general election. The PSS long governed as the junior partner in a coalition with the
Sammarinese Christian Democratic Party, while PD had its origins in the
Sammarinese Communist Party.
The merger of the two parties provoked the exit of the
centrist wing of PSS, which launched the
New Socialist Party and of the socialist wing of PD, which formed the
Left Party and joined the
Sammarinese Communist Refoundation into forming the new
United Left political coalition, while 2 other splinters, led by
Fabio Berardi and
Nadia Ottaviani, both members of the
Grand and General Council, who considered the party to be too left-wing, split in September 2008 to form the
Arengo and Freedom party.
In the
2006 general election PSD won 31.8 % of the vote and 20 out of 60 seats and governed in coalition from 2006-2008 with the
Popular Alliance and United Left until tensions between the latter two caused the coalition to disintegrate.
For the
2008 general election the PSD allowed the smaller
Sammarinese for Freedom...
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