Democratic Party (Italy)

The Democratic Party (Italian: Partito Democratico, PD) is a social democratic political party in Italy. The party's secretary is Elly Schlein, elected in the 2023 leadership election, while the party's president is Stefano Bonaccini.

The PD was established in 2007 upon the merger of various centre-left parties which had been part of The Olive Tree list in the 2006 Italian general election, mainly the social democratic Democrats of the Left (DS), successor of the Italian Communist Party and the Democratic Party of the Left, which was folded with several social democratic parties (Labour Federation and Social Christians, among others) in 1998, as well as the largely Catholic-inspired Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL), a merger of the Italian People's Party (heir of the Christian Democracy party's left wing), The Democrats and Italian Renewal in 2002. While the party has also been influenced by Christian left, social liberalism and Third Way, especially under Matteo Renzi's leadership, the PD moved closer to social liberalism. Under latter leaders, especially Schlein, whose upbringing is influenced by the left-wing, environmentalism and green politics, the party has moved to the left.

Between 2013 and 2018, the Council of Ministers was led by three successive prime ministers of Italy from the PD, namely Letta (2013–2014), Renzi (2014–2016) and Paolo Gentiloni (2016–2018). The PD was the second-largest party in the 2018 Italian general election, where the centre-left coalition came third. The party was returned to government in September 2019 with the Conte II Cabinet, as junior partner of the Five Star Movement, and joined the national unity Draghi Cabinet, comprising also the League and Forza Italia, in February 2021. In the 2022 Italian general election, the PD-led coalition achieved similar results to 2018 and returned to the opposition. However, the PD consolidated as one of the two major political parties in Italy during the 2020s along with the Brothers of Italy.

Prominent Democrats include former leaders Walter Veltroni, Dario Franceschini, Nicola Zingaretti and Enrico Letta. Former members have included Giorgio Napolitano (President of Italy, 2006–2015), Sergio Mattarella (President of Italy, 2015–present), four Prime Ministers (Romano Prodi, Giuliano Amato, Massimo D'Alema and Renzi), three former leaders (Pier Luigi Bersani, Guglielmo Epifani and, again, Renzi), as well as David Sassoli (President of the European Parliament, 2019–2022), Francesco Rutelli, Pietro Grasso and Carlo Calenda. As of 2025, four regions (Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Apulia and Campania) have Democratic presidents, while in three more regions (Aosta Valley, Umbria and Sardinia) the PD is part of the governing coalition.

In the early 1990s, a process was started, aimed at uniting left-wing and centre-left forces into a single political entity. This followed the Tangentopoli corruption scandals, the end of the so-called First Republic and the transformation of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS).

In 1995, Romano Prodi, a former minister of Industry on behalf of the left-wing faction of Christian Democracy (DC), entered politics and founded The Olive Tree (L'Ulivo), a centre-left coalition including the PDS, the Italian People's Party (PPI), the Federation of the Greens (FdV), Italian Renewal (RI), the Italian Socialists (SI) and Democratic Union (UD). The coalition in alliance with the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) won the 1996 general election and Prodi became prime minister.

In February 1998, the PDS merged with minor social democratic parties (Labour Federation and Social Christians, among others) to become the Democrats of the Left (DS), while in March 2002 the PPI, RI and The Democrats (Prodi's own party, launched in 1999) became Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL). In the summer of 2003, Prodi suggested that centre-left forces should participate in the 2004 European Parliament election with a common list. Whereas the Union of Democrats for Europe (UDEUR) and the far-left parties refused, four parties accepted, namely the DS, DL, the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI) and the European Republicans Movement (MRE). These launched a joint list named United in the Olive Tree which ran in the election and garnered 31.1% of the vote. The project was later abandoned in 2005 by the SDI.

In the 2006 general election, the list obtained 31.3% of the vote for the Chamber of Deputies.