Liberal Popular Alliance – Autonomies
Alleanza Liberalpopolare – Autonomie |
|
---|---|
President | Denis Verdini |
Founded | 28 July 2015 |
Split from | Forza Italia |
Headquarters | Via Poli, 29 Rome |
Ideology |
Centrism Liberalism Regionalism |
Political position | Centre |
Chamber of Deputies |
8 / 630
|
Senate |
16 / 315
|
The Liberal Popular Alliance (Italian: Alleanza Liberalpopolare), whose full name is Liberal Popular Alliance – Autonomies (Alleanza Liberalpopolare – Autonomie, ALA), is a centrist and liberal political party in Italy.
ALA members are known as Verdiniani, from the name of their leader Denis Verdini, who was formerly a long-time member and national coordinator of three successive centre-right parties led by Silvio Berlusconi (Forza Italia, The People of Freedom and Forza Italia) until July 2015, when he broke with Berlusconi in order to support the government led by Matteo Renzi.
Verdini aimed at launching the "Moderates for Renzi", that would eventually include the other centrist parties supporting the government, namely the New Centre-Right, the Union of the Centre and Civic Choice (the Christian leftist and centrist Solidary Democracy, currently in alliance with the kin Democratic Centre, ruled out any interest in the idea).
The Liberal Popular Alliance emerged in July 2015 from a split from Forza Italia (FI), led by Denis Verdini, who wanted to support the reforms put forward by the Renzi Cabinet, and was joined by senators coming from different centre-right groups, including Great Autonomies and Freedom (GAL), Conservatives and Reformists (CR) and New Centre-Right (NCD).Lucio Barani, who until then was the leader of the New Italian Socialist Party (NPSI), was elected president of the senatorial group. "Autonomies" was added to "Liberal Popular Alliance" as a reference to the presence of two senators of the Movement for the Autonomies–Party of Sicilians (MpA–PdS) in the group. Other than Barani, who continued to be a member of the NPSI, and the two MpA–PdS senators, the other group members were independent from any party affiliation.