Democratic Union for the Republic

Democratic Union for the Republic
Democratic Union for the Republic; Unione Democratica per la Repubblica
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President	Francesco Cossiga
Vice president	Rocco Buttiglione, Carlo Scognamiglio
Secretary	Clemente Mastella
Founded	May 1996 (alliance); February 1998 (unified party)
Dissolved	February 1999
Merger of	Christian Democrats for the Republic, European Liberal Social Democracy
Succeeded by	Union of Democrats for Europe
Ideology	Christian democracy
Political position	Centre
European affiliation	European People's Party
European Parliament group	European People's Party
	Politics of Italy; Political parties; Elections

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The Democratic Union for the Republic (Italian: Unione Democratica per la Repubblicacode: it is deprecated , UDR) was a short-lived centrist Christian democratic political party in Italy.

It was founded in February 1998 by Francesco Cossiga (former Prime Minister and President) in order to provide a majority in Parliament for the creation of the D'Alema I Cabinet.^[1] The party also included Clemente Mastella (ex-Christian Democratic Centre, then leader of the Christian Democrats for the Republic), Rocco Buttiglione (leader of the United Christian Democrats), Mario Segni (leader of Segni Pact), Carlo Scognamiglio Pasini (ex-FI), Enrico Ferri (ex-CCD) and Irene Pivetti (ex-Lega Nord), along with many other MPs elected for the centre-right. Cossiga'a sim was to facilitate the creation of a centre-left governments without the support of the Communist Refoundation Party.^[2] The UDR was initially only a federation of parties, but in June CDR, CDU and the Segni Pact merged to form a united party. Clemente Mastella was elected Secretary of the new party. The party formed The Clover (Il Trifoglio) alliance with the Italian Republican Party and Italian Democratic Socialists.^[1]

After disagreements between Cossiga and Mastella, the party broke up in February 1999. Most party members rallied behind Mastella and entered in his Union of Democrats for Europe (UDEUR). Those around Cossiga formed the Union for the Republic (UpR), whose leading members, such as Angelo Sanza and Giorgio Rebuffa, entered in Forza Italia in 2001. The most notable exception was Carlo Scognamiglio Pasini who joined the Federation of Italian Liberals, and then European Democracy and the Pact of Liberal Democrats. Buttiglione had previously re-established the CDU, as Segni did with his Pact, while Ferri joined Forza Italia.

Leadership