Pole of Freedoms

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Pole of Freedoms
Polo delle Libertà
LeaderSilvio Berlusconi
Umberto Bossi
Founded1994
Dissolved1995
Succeeded byPole for Freedoms
Political positionCentre-right
National affiliationwith Pole of Good Government
Centre-right coalition

The Pole of Freedoms (

political and electoral alliance in Italy, launched at the 1994 general election by Silvio Berlusconi. Its counterpart in central and southern Italy was the Pole of Good Government, both forming the first incarnation of the centre-right coalition
.

Differently from the other coalitions in the Italian history, it was simply a political, and not an administrative alliance, so contributing to its failure.[1][2]

History

The alliance was composed primarily of

rightist coalition in opposition to the Pole. The Pannella List also ran against the Pole, since the League saw the List as contrary to its liberal and federalist ideas.[6]

However, the term "Pole of Freedoms" (as that of "Pole of Good Government") had no official character: the logo that identified the coalition included just the symbols of the lists that were part of the alliance (furthermore, this symbol was only present for the election of the Senate).

Even if this alliance, differently from the Pole of Good Government, had the explicit goal to run for the Government of Italy, it was not extended to the local level, where the parties composing it ran individually.

The Pole had good results between the

young people, with three percentage points of difference between the House and the age-restricted Senate.[7]

After the fall of the

Berlusconi I Cabinet because of disagreements with the Lega Nord, the alliance ended. Afterwards Forza Italia, the National Alliance and Christian Democratic Centre formed another coalition, the Pole for Freedoms, which in 2000, after the re-entry of Lega Nord, was renamed the House of Freedoms.[8]

Composition

The Pole was composed of the following political parties:

Party Ideology Leader
Forza Italia (FI) Liberal conservatism Silvio Berlusconi
Lega Nord (LN) Regionalism Umberto Bossi
Christian Democratic Centre (CCD) Christian democracy Pier Ferdinando Casini
Union of the Centre (UdC) Liberalism Raffaele Costa

Election results

Election Leader Chamber of Deputies Senate of the Republic
Votes % Seats Position Votes % Seats Position
1994 Silvio Berlusconi 8,767,720 22.8 2nd
164 / 475
6,570,468 19.9
82 / 315
2nd

References