Free Democrats (Italy)

The Free Democrats (Liberi Democratici, LD) were the centrist faction within the Democratic Party (PD), a political party in Italy, around Francesco Rutelli, former leader of Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy, one of the two main parties that merged to form the PD in 2007.

The faction was launched by Rutelli in June 2009 during a convention in Rome.

The group comprised both liberals and Christian democrats who wanted the PD to be modelled on the example of the United States Democratic Party and consider social democracy as obsolete in the 21st century. In fact the followers of Rutelli, the so-called Rutelliani, included both the secular-liberal faction of the late DL (Paolo Gentiloni, Ermete Realacci and his group of ecologists, Linda Lanzillotta, Gianni Vernetti, Roberto Giachetti, etc.), who represented the more free market-oriented wing of the PD, and the socially conservative Theo-Dems (Paola Binetti, Luigi Bobba, Enzo Carra, Donato Mosella, etc.), who were on the right of the party on moral issues. As told, there was also a group of ecologists from Legambiente, the largest environmentalist association n Italy (Realacci, Roberto Della Seta, Francesco Ferrante, etc.).

This heterogeneity reflected the political trajectory of Rutelli, who entered politics as a Radical, then joined the Greens and finally became a devout Catholic and politically a centrist. Rutelli thus considered himself as a bridge between liberals and Christian democrats, and his conservative stances on advance health care directive, stem cell research and civil unions did not stop him from having a profitable dialogue with secularists and even with his former political godfather Marco Pannella, undisputed leader of the Italian Radicals.

...
Wikipedia