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

The Popular Democratic Front (), shortened name of the Popular Democratic Front for Freedom, Peace, Labour (''Fronte Democratico Popolare per la libertà, la pace, il lavoro'') was a leftist political coalition in Italy.

History

The coalition was formed for the 1948 general election and consisted of the

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) ...

(PCI) and

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parties of the country. Founded in Genoa in 189 ...

(PSI). Its symbol was a green star surmounted by an image of

Italian Unification The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

hero

Giuseppe Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, pa ...

. The Social Christian Party (PCS) and

Sardinian Action Party The Sardinian Action Party ( sc, Partidu Sardu, it, Partito Sardo d'Azione, PSd'Az or PSdA) is a Sardinian nationalist, regionalist and separatist political party in Sardinia. While being traditionally part of the Sardinian centre-left, the p ...

(PSd'Az) were not allied with the coalition, and formed their own electoral lists. The right wing of the PSI opposed the Front, left the party, and organised a separate list as Socialist Unity; this group later became the

Italian Democratic Socialist Party The Italian Democratic Socialist Party (, PSDI), also known as Italian Social Democratic Party, was a minor social-democratic political party in Italy. The longest serving partner in government for Christian Democracy, the PSDI had been an imp ...

(PSDI). The election of 1948 was perhaps the most important in Italian republican history: the choice of future alliance with

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

or with the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

was at issue. The Popular Front got only 31.0% of the vote for the

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 Bourbon R ...

(30.8% of the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

vote). Following the victory of

Christian Democracy Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism. It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...

with 48.5%, Italy became a founding member of

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...

in 1949.

Composition

It was composed of the following

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Election results

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