Origins and background In November 2013
The People of Freedom (PdL), the centre-right party led by
Silvio Berlusconi, was transformed back into
Forza Italia (FI). A group of dissidents, led by
Angelino Alfano, opposed the move and launched the
New Centre-Right (NCD). Up to then, Alfano had been national secretary of the PdL and Berlusconi's protégé. Since its foundation, the NCD was part of the Italian governments successively led by
Enrico Letta,
Matteo Renzi and
Paolo Gentiloni, all three members of the
Democratic Party (PD), and Alfano served as
Minister of the Interior and
Foreign Affairs.
Foundation and early splits speaks at the 2017
EPP summit On 18 March 2017 the NCD was dissolved into
Popular Alternative (AP). Alfano's aim was to build a centre-right alliance with FI, while being at odds with
Lega Nord (LN) and the
Brothers of Italy (FdI), deemed "
populist". Alfano also proposed a
primary election to select the centre-right candidate for Prime Minister. Virtually all NCD's leading members (including
Maurizio Lupi,
Roberto Formigoni,
Beatrice Lorenzin,
Fabrizio Cicchitto,
Antonio Gentile,
Gabriele Albertini,
Laura Bianconi,
Giovanni La Via and
Francesco Colucci) followed Alfano in the new party, while
Maurizio Sacconi joined
Stefano Parisi's
Energies for Italy (EpI). Since its foundation AP was abandoned by five deputies (four re-joining FI, one joining the PD) and four senators (one joining FI, another the FdI and two the
Federation of Freedom, FdL), while two deputies switched from the
Liberal Popular Alliance (ALA). One of the deputies who left the party was
Enrico Costa, who also resigned as minister of Regional Affairs from
Paolo Gentiloni's
government and aimed at forming a "liberal centre" with FI.
Road to the 2018 general election in 2017 In the run-up of the
2018 general election AP, which was soundly defeated in the
2017 Sicilian regional election, was divided in three camps: those who wanted an alliance with the PD (Lorenzin and Cicchitto), those who proposed to run as a stand-alone list (Lupi) and those who were keen on returning with the
centre-right coalition (Formigoni). The decision by the party's national board was postponed several times. In the meantime, Alfano announced that he would not stand in the election. On 12 December 2017 AP's national board approved a consent settlement, under which the two parliamentary groups would continue to be active in order to prepare the electoral participation of the two main factions: the one led by Lorenzin and Cicchitto (backed by Alfano) with the
centre-left (under the "Popular Alternative" name), the one led by Lupi and Formigoni with the centre-right (reviving the "New Centre-Right" banner). A few days later Gentile replaced Lupi as coordinator. On 19 December the group around Lupi and the former AP members close to Costa formed
Us with Italy (NcI), a pro-Berlusconi centrist electoral list within the centre-right coalition, along with
Direction Italy (DI),
Civic Choice (SC),
Act! (F!),
Cantiere Popolare (CP) and the
Movement for the Autonomies (MpA). The list was later enlarged to the
Union of the Centre (UdC) and
Identity and Action (IdeA), with the goal of overcoming the 3% threshold under a new electoral law. On 29 December AP formed the
Popular Civic List (CP), a centrist electoral list within the centre-left coalition, along with
Italy of Values (IdV), the
Centrists for Europe (CpE),
Solidary Democracy (DemoS), the
Union for Trentino (UpT),
Italy Is Popular (IP) and minor parties/groups, and Lorenzin was chosen as leader. Contextually, Gentile stepped down from coordinator and announced his return to FI, while continuing to serve as undersecretary in Gentiloni's government.
2018 general election and decline CP obtained a mere 0.5%, but the rump of AP, led by Lorenzin, had two elects to the Chamber from single-seat constituencies: Lorenzin herself and
Gabriele Toccafondi. NcI scored a little better with 1.3% of the vote and a handful of former AP members, notably including Lupi, were elected in single-seat constituencies. In September 2018 Alfano stepped down from AP presidency and was replaced by
Paolo Alli. In the run-up to the
2019 European Parliament election the party formed a joint list with
The People of the Family, a social-conservative party. However, the party was deeply fractured, as Lorenzin seemed to be supportive of the PD, while former spokesperson
Valentina Castaldini stood as candidate for FI. In September 2019 Lorenzin joined the PD, while Toccafondi was a founding member of Renzi's
Italia Viva party, thus leaving the party with no representatives in Parliament. In June 2022 entrepreneur
Stefano Bandecchi was appointed coordinator of the party, a post previously held by Lorenzin. In the
2023 Italian local elections Bandecchi was elected mayor of
Terni, by beating the FdI candidate in all centre-right run-off. In the following years, Bandecchi became quite notorious on national stage, due to his controversial and
populist statements. In the
2024 European Parliament election, the party ran its own list and was allowed by the
Supreme Court of Cassation to do so without collecting any signature since it is affiliated with the
European People's Party. However, the list only received 0.39% of votes and thus failed to reach the 4% threshold. ==Ideology and factions==