The Democratic Party (, PD) is a centre-left, social-democratic political party in Italy, led by Elly Schlein as secretary and Stefano Bonaccini as president. Since its foundation, it has been the main centre-left force in the country, and it is currently one of Italy's two major parties, opposing Brothers of Italy.

The PD was established in 2007 upon the merger of various centre-left parties which had been part of The Olive Tree list in the 2006 Italian general election, mainly the social-democratic Democrats of the Left (DS), successor of the Italian Communist Party and the Democratic Party of the Left, which was folded with several social-democratic parties (Labour Federation and Social Christians, among others) in 1998, as well as the largely Catholic-inspired Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL), a merger of the Italian People's Party (heir of the Christian Democracy party's left-wing), The Democrats and Italian Renewal in 2002. While the party has also been influenced by Christian left, social liberalism and Third Way, especially under Matteo Renzi's leadership, the PD moved closer to the centre. Under latter leaders, especially Schlein, who was elected in the 2023 leadership election despite party members' preference for Bonaccini and whose upbringing is influenced by the left-wing, environmentalism and green politics, the party has tilted left.

Between 2013 and 2018 the Council of Ministers was led by three successive prime ministers of Italy from the PD, namely Letta (2013–2014), Renzi (2014–2016) and Paolo Gentiloni (2016–2018). The PD was the second-largest party in the 2018 Italian general election, where the centre-left coalition came third. The party was returned to government in September 2019 with the Conte II Cabinet, as junior partner of the Five Star Movement, and joined the national unity Draghi Cabinet, comprising also the League and , in February 2021. In the 2022 Italian general election, the PD-led coalition achieved similar results to 2018 and returned to the opposition.

Prominent Democrats include former leaders Walter Veltroni, Dario Franceschini, Nicola Zingaretti and Enrico Letta. Former members have included Giorgio Napolitano (President of Italy, 2006–2015), Sergio Mattarella (President of Italy, 2015–present) and four Prime Ministers (Romano Prodi, Giuliano Amato, Massimo D'Alema and Renzi). As of 2025, three regions out of 20 (Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Apulia) have Democratic presidents, while in three more regions (Umbria, Campania and Sardinia) the PD is part of the governing coalition.

History Background: The Olive Tree

In the early 1990s a process was started, aimed at uniting left-wing and centre-left forces into a single political entity. This followed the Tangentopoli corruption scandals, the end of the so-called First Republic and the transformation of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS).

In 1995 Romano Prodi, a former minister of Industry on behalf of the left-wing faction of Christian Democracy (DC), entered politics and founded The Olive Tree (L'Ulivo), a centre-left coalition including the PDS, the Italian People's Party (PPI), the Federation of the Greens (FdV), Italian Renewal (RI), the Italian Socialists (SI) and Democratic Union (UD). The coalition in alliance with the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) won the 1996 general election and Prodi became prime minister.

In February 1998 the PDS merged with minor social democratic parties (Labour Federation and Social Christians, among others) to become the Democrats of the Left (DS), while in March 2002 the PPI, RI and The Democrats (Prodi's own party, launched in 1999) became Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL). In the summer of 2003, Prodi suggested that centre-left forces should participate in the 2004 European Parliament election with a common list. Whereas the Union of Democrats for Europe (UDEUR) and the far-left parties refused, four parties accepted, namely the DS, DL, the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI) and the European Republicans Movement (MRE). These launched a joint list named United in the Olive Tree which ran in the election and garnered 31.1% of the vote. The project was later abandoned in 2005 by the SDI.

In the 2006 general election the list obtained 31.3% of the vote for the Chamber of Deputies.

Road to the Democratic Party

The project of a Democratic Party was often mentioned by Prodi as the natural evolution of The Olive Tree and was bluntly envisioned by Michele Salvati, a former centrist deputy of the DS, in an appeal in Il Foglio newspaper in April 2013. The term Partito Democratico was used for the first time in a formal context by the DL and DS members of the Regional Council of Veneto, who chose to form a joint group named The Olive Tree – Venetian Democratic Party (L'Ulivo – Partito Democratico Veneto) in March 2007.

The 2006 election result, anticipated by the 2005 primary election in which over four million voters endorsed Prodi as candidate for prime minister, gave a push to the project of a unified centre-left party. Eight parties agreed to merge into the PD: Democrats of the Left (DS, social democratic, leader: Piero Fassino) Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL, centrist, leader: Francesco Rutelli). Southern Democratic Party (PDM, centrist, leader: Agazio Loiero); Sardinia Project (PS, social democratic, leader: Renato Soru); European Republicans Movement (MRE, social-liberal, leader: Luciana Sbarbati); Democratic Republicans (RD, social-liberal, leader: Giuseppe Ossorio); Middle Italy (IdM, centrist, leader: Marco Follini); Reformist Alliance (AR, social democratic, leader: Ottaviano Del Turco).

While the DL agreed to the merger with virtually no resistance, the DS experienced a more heated final congress. On 19 April 2007, approximately 75% of party members voted in support of the merger of the DS into the PD. The left-wing opposition, led by Fabio Mussi, obtained just 15% of the support within the party. A third motion, presented by Gavino Angius and supportive of the PD only within the Party of European Socialists (PES), obtained 10% of the vote. Both Mussi and Angius refused to join the PD and, following the congress, founded a new party called Democratic Left (SD).

On 22 May 2007 the organising committee of the nascent party was formed. It consisted of 45 members, mainly politicians from the two aforementioned major parties and the leaders of the other six minor parties. Also leading external figures such as Giuliano Amato, Marcello De Cecco, Gad Lerner, Carlo Petrini and Tullia Zevi were included. On 18 June, the committee decided the rules for the open election of the 2,400 members of the party's constituent assembly; each voter could choose between a number of lists, each of them associated with a candidate for secretary.

Foundation and leadership election

All candidates interested in running for the PD leadership had to be associated with one of the founding parties and present at least 2,000 valid signatures by 30 July 2007. A total of ten candidates officially registered their candidacy: Walter Veltroni, Rosy Bindi, Enrico Letta, Furio Colombo, Marco Pannella, Antonio Di Pietro, Mario Adinolfi, Pier Giorgio Gawronski, Jacopo Schettini, Lucio Cangini and Amerigo Rutigliano. Of these, Pannella and Di Pietro were rejected because of their involvement in external parties (the Radicals and Italy of Values respectively) whereas Cangini and Rutigliano did not manage to present the necessary 2,000 valid signatures for the 9 pm deadline and Colombo's candidacy was instead made into hiatus to give him 48 additional hours to integrate the required documentation. Colombo later decided to retire his candidacy citing his impossibility to fit with all the requirements. All rejected candidates had the chance against the decision in 48 hours' time, with Pannella and Rutigliano being the only two candidates to appeal. Both were rejected on 3 August.

On 14 October 2007 Veltroni was elected leader with about 75% of the national votes in an open primary attended by over three million voters. Veltroni was proclaimed secretary during a party's constituent assembly held in Milan on 28 October 2007.

On 21 November the new logo was unveiled. It depicts an olive branch and the acronym PD in colours reminiscent of the Italian tricolour flag (green, white and red). In the words of Ermete Realacci, green represents the ecologist and social-liberal cultures, white the Catholic solidarity and red the socialist and social democratic traditions. The green-white-red idea was coined by Schettini during his campaign.

Leadership of Walter Veltroni

After the premature fall of the Prodi II Cabinet in January 2008, the PD decided to form a less diverse coalition. The party invited the Radicals and the Socialist Party (PS) to join its lists, but only the Radicals accepted and formed an alliance with Italy of Values (IdV) which was set to join the PD after the election. The PD included many notable candidates and new faces in its lists and Walter Veltroni, who tried to present the PD as the party of the renewal in contrast both with Silvio Berlusconi and the previous centre-left government, ran an intense and modern campaign which led him to visit all provinces of Italy, but that was not enough.

In the 2008 general election on 13–14 April 2008, the PD–IdV coalition won 37.5% of the vote and was defeated by the centre-right coalition, composed of The People of Freedom (PdL), the Lega Nord and the Movement for Autonomy (46.8%). The PD was able to absorb some votes from the parties of the far-left as also IdV did, but lost voters to the Union of the Centre (UdC), ending up with 33.2% of the vote, 217 deputies and 119 senators. After the election Veltroni, who was gratified by the result, formed a shadow cabinet. IdV, excited by its 4.4% which made it the fourth largest party in Parliament, refused to join both the Democratic groups and the shadow cabinet.

The early months after the election were a difficult time for the PD and Veltroni, whose leadership was weakened by the growing influence of internal factions because of the popularity of Berlusconi and the dramatic rise of IdV in opinion polls. IdV became a strong competitor of the PD and the relations between the two parties became tense. In the 2008 Abruzzo regional election, the PD was forced to support IdV candidate Carlo Costantini. In October, Veltroni, who distanced from Di Pietro many times, declared that "on some issues he [Di Pietro] is distant from the democratic language of the centre-left".

Leadership of Dario Franceschini

After a crushing defeat in the February 2009 Sardinian regional election, Walter Veltroni resigned as party secretary. His deputy Dario Franceschini took over as interim party secretary to guide the party toward the selection of a new stable leader. Franceschini was elected by the party's national assembly with 1,047 votes out of 1,258. His only opponent Arturo Parisi won a mere 92 votes. Franceschini was the first former Christian Democrat to lead the party.

The 2009 European Parliament election was an important test for the PD. Prior to the election, the PD considered offering hospitality to the Socialist Party (PS) and the Greens in its lists, and proposed a similar pact to Democratic Left (SD). However, the Socialists, the Greens and Democratic Left decided instead to contest the election together as a new alliance called Left and Freedom which failed to achieve the 4% threshold required to return any MEPs, but damaged the PD, which gained 26.1% of the vote, returning 21 MEPs.

Leadership of Pier Luigi Bersani