The (
Left-wing Political Party , part of the
Ulivo electoral coalition.
The party developed from the PDS (''Partito democratico della Sinistra'' or ''PDS'', "
Democratic Party Of The Left "), which in turn was a reshaping of the
Italian Communist Party into a
Social Democratic party. Under the leadership of
Massimo D'Alema , the party merged with other minor like-minded movements, and took the current name, removing the
Hammer And Sickle from its symbol and substituting it with a rose.
The current secretary is
Piero Fassino , elected with 61.8% of party members' votes during the second National Congress in November of
2001 . Piero Fassino was the candidate of a mainstream
Third Way tendency. The candidacy of
Giovanni Berlinguer , endorsed by radical democrats,
Democratic Socialists and the
CGIL trade union, gained 34.1% of party members votes. The right wing of the party, led by
Enrico Morando , got 4.1%.
Piero Fassino has been re-elected during the third National Congress, in february 2005 with 79.1% of party members' votes. No other candidates were present, but left-wing candidates ran for congressional delegates and received 14.56% of party members votes won by the ''DS Left—returning to win'', 3.98% by the ''DS Left for socialism'' and 2.36% by the ''Ecologist Left''.
Inside the party are several organized political tendency associations. On the right wing the ''Liberal'' association have a strongly moderate
Third Way or
Radical Middle political agenda.
The left-wing opposition is lead by the ''DS Left—returning to win'' (Italian: ''Sinistra DS—per tornare a vincere''), a left-of-.
The core of the .
Inside the party, there is often a somewhat simplistic distinction between reformists (''riformisti'') and radicals (''radicali'' or ''massimalisti''), indicating respectively the mainstream or the left-wing area, formerly know as ''correntone''.
Several personalities formerly inside or close to the left-wing area of the party, as
Pietro Folena ,
Pietro Ingrao and Achille Occhetto, are now approaching or joining the
Communist Refoundation Party which, from his sixth congress held in January
2005 , is moving torward a more heterogenous, non-sectarian and strongly pacifist kind of left-wing party.
In the autonomous region of also as ''Levi Demokrati'' (
Slovenian for Left-Wing Democrats), in the towns where the
Slovenian minority is present.
In the
European Parliament it has 12 MEPs, who sit as part of the
Party Of European Socialists group.
