The Popular Democratic Front (), shortened name of the Popular Democratic Front for Freedom, Peace, Labour (Italian: ''Fronte Democratico Popolare per la libertà, la pace, il lavoro''), was a left-wing

political coalition A parliamentary group, parliamentary caucus or political group is a group consisting of members of different political parties or independent politicians with similar ideologies. Some parliamentary systems allow smaller political parties, who a ...

in Italy. Formed in December 1947 by the

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Social democracy, social democratic and Democratic socialism, democratic socialist political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parti ...

(PSI) and the

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party (, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was established in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Part ...

(PCI), it contested the 1948 Italian general election.

History

The coalition was formed for the 1948 general election and consisted of the PSI and PCI. Its symbol was a green star surmounted by an image of

Italian unification The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of ...

hero

Giuseppe Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as (). In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as () or (). 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. H ...

. The Social Christian Party (PCS) and

Sardinian Action Party The Sardinian Action Party (, , PSd'Az or PSdA) is a Sardinian nationalism, Sardinian nationalist, Regionalism (politics), regionalist and Separatism, separatist list of political parties in Sardinia, political party in Sardinia founded by Sardin ...

(PSd'Az) were not allied with the coalition and formed their own electoral lists. The right-wing of the PSI opposed the coalition, left the party, and organized a separate list as Socialist Unity; this group later became the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI). The election of 1948 was perhaps the most important in the history of the Italian Republic, as the choice of future alliance with the United States or with the Soviet Union was at issue. The coalition got 31.0% of the vote for Italy's

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...

and 30.8% of the country's Senate of the Republic vote. Following the victory of

Christian Democracy Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well ...

(DC) with 48.5%, Italy became a founding member of

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

in 1949. After the electoral defeat, while the PCI and PSI remained allies at the national level until 1956 and would govern together at the local level into the 1990s, the coalition was dissolved. Despite the loss, the PCI established itself as the main opposition to the DC and went on to become the largest Communist party in Western Europe.

Composition

Election results

Roma - Garbatella - Graffito restaurato dal Municipio - Fronte popolare alle elezioni del 18 aprile 1948

References

{{authority control 1947 establishments in Italy 1948 disestablishments in Italy Defunct political party alliances in Italy Political parties disestablished in 1948 Political parties established in 1947 Popular fronts