Patto Segni was a Christian-democratic

Christian Democracy

Christian democracy is a political ideology that seeks to apply Christian principles to public policy. It emerged in nineteenth-century Europe under the influence of conservatism and Catholic social teaching...

 and liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 political party in Italy, named after Mario Segni

Mario Segni

Mariotto Segni, more often known as Mario, is an Italian politician, son of Antonio Segni, one time President of the Republic of Italy....

.

History

The party was founded in 1993 as a split from Democratic Alliance

Democratic Alliance (Italy)

The Democratic Alliance was an Italian political party founded in 1993, with the intent of becoming the container of an alliance of centre-left forces. However, the project did not succeed, and it presented itself as a minor party, mainly composed of former Republicans and former Communists...

 and as the continuation of the Populars for the Reform

Populars for the Reform

The Populars for the Reform was a Christian-democratic and liberal political party in Italy.It was founded in 1992 by Mario Segni as a split from Christian Democracy. The main goal of the party was electoral reform from proportional representation to a first-past-the-post system...

, a split from Christian Democracy

Christian Democracy (Italy)

Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic party in Italy. It was founded in 1943 as the ideological successor of the historical Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield ....

 in 1992, whose principal aim was electoral reform from proportional representation

Proportional representation

Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...

 to a plurality voting system

Plurality voting system

The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies...

.

The party contested the 1994 general election

Italian general election, 1994

An early national general election was held in Italy on March 27, 1994 to elect members of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right alliance won handily the election for the Chamber and only narrowly lost that for the Senate....

 within the Pact for Italy

Pact for Italy

The Pact of Italy was a centrist electoral coalition in Italy, launched by Mario Segni and Mino Martinazzoli in 1994....

 coalition, along with the Italian People's Party and with Mario Segni as candidate for Prime Minister. The PS included in its lists Republicans

Italian Republican Party

The Italian Republican Party is a liberal political party in Italy.The PRI is party with old roots that originally took a left-wing position, claiming descent from the political position of Giuseppe Mazzini...

 (Giorgio La Malfa

Giorgio La Malfa

Giorgio La Malfa is an Italian politician.-Biography:La Malfa was born in Milan, the son of Ugo La Malfa, a long-time Italian political leader and minister....

, Alberto Zorzoli, Vittorio Dotti, Danilo Poggiolini and Carla Mazzuca), Liberals

Italian Liberal Party

The Italian Liberal Party was a liberal political party in Italy.-Origins:The origins of liberalism in Italy came from the so-called "Historical Right", a parliamentary group formed by Camillo Benso di Cavour in the Parliament of the Kingdom of Sardinia following the 1848 revolution...

 (Valerio Zanone

Valerio Zanone

Valerio Zanone is an Italian politician, who was secretary and president of the Italian Liberal Party. He was also a senator of the Democratic Party.-Biography:Zanone was born in Turin....

, Pietro Milio and Luigi Compagna), Socialists

Italian Socialist Party

The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...

 (Giuliano Amato

Giuliano Amato

Giuliano Amato is an Italian politician. He was Prime Minister of Italy twice, first from 1992 to 1993 and then from 2000 to 2001. He was more recently Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the new European Constitution and headed the Amato Group. He is commonly...

, Giulio Tremonti

Giulio Tremonti

Giulio Tremonti is an Italian politician. He served in the government of Italy as Minister of Economy and Finance under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from 1994 to 1995, from 2001 to 2004, from 2005 to 2006, and from 2008 to 2011....

 and Claudio Nicolini), Social Democrats

Italian Democratic Socialist Party

The Italian Democratic Socialist Party is a minor social-democratic political party in Italy. Mimmo Magistro is the party leader. The PSDI, before the 1990s decline in votes and members, had been an important force in Italian politics, being the longest serving partner in government for Christian...

 (Enrico Ferri

Enrico Ferri

Enrico Ferri was an Italian criminologist, socialist, and student of Cesare Lombroso. However, whereas Lombroso researched the physiological factors that motivated criminals, Ferri investigated social and economic factors. Ferri was the author of Criminal Sociology in 1884 and the editor for...

 and Gian Franco Schietroma) and several former Christian Democrats

Christian Democracy (Italy)

Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic party in Italy. It was founded in 1943 as the ideological successor of the historical Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield ....

 (Mario Segni himself, Gianni Rivera

Gianni Rivera

Giovanni Rivera is an Italian former football midfielder, mostly as an offensive playmaker, who was awarded the Ballon d'Or, one of the most prestigious individual awards in football, in 1969. He played the majority of his career with Serie A side A.C. Milan...

, Alberto Michelini, Elisabetta Gardini

Elisabetta Gardini

Elisabetta Gardini is an Italian actress and politician from Veneto.A popular actress and RAI host close to Christian Democracy, Gardini was an unsuccessful candidate for Patto Segni in the 1994 general election...

, Michele Cossa, Livio Filippi, Vincenzo Viola, etc.).

The PS won 4.7% of the vote and 13 deputies, but soon after the election it split in many factions. The group around Alberto Michelini and Giulio Tremonti, for instance, founded the Liberal Democratic Foundation

Liberal Democratic Foundation

The Liberal Democratic Foundation was a Christian-democratic and liberal Italian political party.It was founded on 28 April 1994 by splinters from Patto Segni led by Giulio Tremonti and Alberto Michelini...

 and decided to support the Berlusconi I Cabinet

Berlusconi I Cabinet

The Berlusconi I Cabinet was the cabinet of the government of Italy from 10 May 1994 to January 17, 1995.It was composed of 26 ministers and 38 under-secretaries, for a total of 64 members.Composition of the government:...

 (Tremonti even became Finance Minister); by the 1996 they had joined Forza Italia

Forza Italia

Forza Italia was a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Italy, with a large social democratic minority, that was led by Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime Minister of Italy....

.

In the 1995 regional elections, the Pact formed a list named Pact of Democrats

Pact of Democrats

The Pact of Democrats was an electoral alliance in Italy.It was launched for the 1995 regional elections by Patto Segni, Italian Socialists and Democratic Alliance. After the election, in which PD scored everywhere between 3 and 6%, with the exception of Abruzzo and tiny Molise , the alliance was...

, along with the Italian Socialists

Italian Socialists

The Italian Socialists were a minor social-democratic political party in Italy active in Italy from 1994 to 1998....

 and Democratic Alliance, gaining mixed results and in November to Florence Gian Piero Ventura, secretary of the youthful group, it has founded the movement "Young People for The Olive Tree" with Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...

 e Walter Veltroni

Walter Veltroni

Walter Veltroni, Knight Grand Cross, is an Italian writer, journalist and politician, who served as the first leader of the Democratic Party within the centre-left opposition, until his resignation on 17 February 2009. He served as Mayor of Rome from 2001 to 2008.-Biography:Walter Veltroni was...

. In the 1996 general election

Italian general election, 1996

An early national general election was held in Italy on 21 April, 1996 to elect members of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic...

 the party was part of Italian Renewal

Italian Renewal

The Italian Renewal was a liberal-centrist political party in Italy.It was founded in 1996 by Lamberto Dini along with some former Liberals, Socialists, Christian Democrats, Republicans and Social Democrats...

 and got eight seats at the Chamber of Deputies of Italy (Diego Masi

Diego Masi

Diego Masi is an Italian entrepreneur and politician, deputy during the XII and XIII legislatures.Loyalist of Mariotto Segni, he overlooked the political scene during the elections of 1994 as a member of the Segni Pact. He was elected in the proportional share for the small center party...

, Giuseppe Bicocchi, Elisa Pozza Tasca, Gianni Rivera

Gianni Rivera

Giovanni Rivera is an Italian former football midfielder, mostly as an offensive playmaker, who was awarded the Ballon d'Or, one of the most prestigious individual awards in football, in 1969. He played the majority of his career with Serie A side A.C. Milan...

, Antonino Mangiacavallo, Gianantonio Mazzocchin, Bonaventura Lamacchia, Paolo Manca) and one seat at the Senate of the Italian Republic (Carla Mazzuca Poggiolini).

In 1999, after having contributed to the foundation of the Democratic Union for the Republic

Democratic Union for the Republic

The Democratic Union for the Republic was a short-lived centrist political party in Italy.It was founded in February 1998 by Francesco Cossiga, Clemente Mastella , Rocco Buttiglione , Mario Segni The Democratic Union for the Republic (Unione Democratica per la Repubblica, UDR) was a short-lived...

 with Francesco Cossiga

Francesco Cossiga

Francesco Cossiga was an Italian politician, the 43rd Prime Minister and the eighth President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari....

 and Clemente Mastella

Clemente Mastella

Mario Clemente Mastella is an Italian politician. He is currently leader of Popular-UDEUR, a minor centrist Italian party. He was Minister of Labour in the Berlusconi government from 10 May 1994 to 17 January 1995, and Minister of Justice in the Prodi government from 17 May 2006 to 17 January 2008...

, the PS attracted some former Radicals from Forza Italia (Marco Taradash and Giuseppe Calderisi), while others left the party to join The Democrats (Elisa Pozza Tasca, Danilo Poggiolini, Carla Mazzuca, Livio Filippi and Vincenzo Viola). In the 1999 European Parliament election

European Parliament election, 1999 (Italy)

The European Parliament election of 1999 in Italy was the election of the delegation from Italy to the European Parliament in 1999.-References:...

 the party formed a joint list with National Alliance

National Alliance (Italy)

National Alliance was a conservative political party in Italy.Gianfranco Fini was the leader of the party since its foundation in 1995, however he stepped down in 2008 after being elected to the nominally non-partisan post of President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and was succeeded by...

 and Segni was re-elected MEP

Member of the European Parliament

A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...

.

In 2001 the PS decided not to present lists for the general election

Italian general election, 2001

A national general election was held in Italy on May 13, 2001 to elect members of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic. The 14th Parliament of the Italian republic was chosen....

, but Michele Cossa, member of the Sardinian Reformers

Sardinian Reformers

The Sardinian Reformers is a liberal and Christian-democratic political party in Sardinia based in Sardinia and led by Massimo Fantola....

, the regional section of the party in Sardinia

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

, was elected deputy in a single-seat constituency of Cagliari

Cagliari

Cagliari is the capital of the island of Sardinia, a region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name Casteddu literally means castle. It has about 156,000 inhabitants, or about 480,000 including the outlying townships : Elmas, Assemini, Capoterra, Selargius, Sestu, Monserrato, Quartucciu, Quartu...

 for the House of Freedoms

House of Freedoms

The House of Freedoms , was a major Italian centre-right political and electoral alliance led by Silvio Berlusconi. It was initially composed of several political parties:*Forza Italia *National Alliance...

 centre-right coalition.

In 2003 the party was finally transformed into the Pact of Liberal Democrats

Pact of Liberal Democrats

The Pact of Liberal Democrats is a liberal and Christian-democratic Italian political party.It was conceived in 2003 by Mario Segni, Carlo Scognamiglio Pasini and Michele Cossa , as a centrist party alternative to the centre-left...

.