House of Freedom
|
House of Freedoms
Casa delle Libertà |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Leader | Silvio Berlusconi |
| Other leaders |
Gianfranco Fini Pier Ferdinando Casini Umberto Bossi |
| Founded | 2000 |
| Dissolved | 2008 |
| Preceded by | Pole for Freedoms |
| Succeeded by |
The People of Freedom (merger: FI, AN, minor parties) Centre-right coalition |
| Political position | Centre-right |
The House of Freedoms (Italian: Casa delle Libertà, CdL), was a major centre-right political and electoral alliance in Italy, led by Silvio Berlusconi.
The CdL was the successor of the Pole of Freedoms/Pole of Good Government and the Pole for Freedoms. The former two-headed coalition had won the 1994 general election and formed the Berlusconi I Cabinet, which fell in December 1994, when the LN, whose relations with AN were quite tense, withdrew its support. The latter coalition, which did not include the LN, lost the 1996 general election to The Olive Tree, the centre-left coalition led by Romano Prodi.
In the run-up of the 2001 general election, after a six-year spell in opposition, which Berlusconi called "the crossing of the desert", he managed to re-unite the coalition under the "House of Freedoms" banner. According to its leader, the alliance was a "broad democratic arch, composed of the democratic right, namely AN, the great democratic centre, namely Forza Italia, CCD and CDU, and the democratic left represented by the League, the New PSI, the PRI and, at least I hope so, Cossiga".
The CdL won the 2001 general election by a landslide and, consequently, the Berlusconi II Cabinet was formed. In government, FI, whose strongholds included Lombardy as well as Sicily, and the LN, which was active only in the Centre-North, formed the so-called "axis of the North", through the special relationship between three Lombards leaders, Berlusconi, Giulio Tremonti and Umberto Bossi; on the other side of the coalition, AN and the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC), the party emerged from the merger of the CCD and the CDU in late 2002, became the natural representatives of Southern interests.
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