Fourth Phase

Fourth Phase (Quarta Fase, QF) is a faction within the Democratic Party (PD), a political party in Italy.

The name of the faction was chosen to identify the new stage of left-wing Catholics in Italian politics, the first three being within the Italian People's Party (1919–1926), the Christian Democracy (1943–1994) and the Italian People's Party respectively, and the fourth the current one, with the Democratic Party, a party in which Catholics are a minority. This phase, according to the faction's website, started with the foundation of Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL), that put together Populars with people coming from different political traditions.

The heirs of the left-wing of the late Christian Democracy and later the Italian People's Party (1994–2002), a Christian-democratic party of the Christian left, organized themselves within DL as The Populars. Between 2002 and 2007 the Populars, led by Franco Marini and Ciriaco De Mita, within DL. In the 2007 Democratic Party primary election around 600 Populars were elected to the party Constituent Assembly.

As the Populars failed to find a common ground in the new party, they split in different groups. The bulk of the faction (Marini, Dario Franceschini, Giuseppe Fioroni, Antonello Soro and Pierluigi Castagnetti) supported Walter Veltroni as leader of the party. Rosy Bindi and Enrico Letta ran against Veltroni and set up their factions, Democrats Really and 360 Association respectively. Another leading member, Ciriaco De Mita, abandoned the PD over disagreements with Veltroni in early 2008. The failure of The Populars to be a united faction led Fioroni, Franceschini and Soro, backed by Marini, to set Fourth Phase.

...
Wikipedia