National Alliance (Italy)

National Alliance's political programme emphasized:

• traditional values, being often close to the position of the Catholic Church, despite some social liberal and secular attitudes;
• law and order, especially laws aimed at controlling immigration and implementing punishment;
• support for Israel,[12] the United States and European integration;[19]
• prohibition of all drugs, including marijuana.

Distinguishing itself from the MSI, the party distanced itself from Benito Mussolini and Fascism and made efforts to improve relations with Jewish groups.[7] For example, after far-right skinheads celebrated the then-AN politician Gianni Alemanno's election as Mayor of Rome in 2008 by making the Roman salute outside the Palazzo Senatorio, Alemanno visited Rome Synagogue, where he gave a speech praising the "universal" values of the fight against Nazism. The shift was also present in the rhetoric of the party's leader Fini, who went from declaring himself as "fascist for the 2000s" in 1987 when at the head of the MSI, to describing himself as a "conservative" at the time of the AN's launch in 1994.[19] With most hardliners leaving the party,[7][12] it sought to present itself as a respectable conservative party and to join forces with Forza Italia in the European People's Party and, eventually, in a united party of the centre-right. Historian David Broder has compared the AN to Spain's post-Franco People's Party.[19]

Although the party approved the market economy and held favourable views on liberalization and the privatization of state industries, AN was to the left of Forza Italia on economic issues and sometimes supported statist policies.[20] That is why the party was strong in Rome and Lazio, where most civil servants live. The implosion of the Christian Democrats created space for a more economically interventionist party of the conservative right, and the AN sought closer ties to the former DC factions which joined the Berlusconi-led alliances of the right. As part of this it also moderated its stances on the European Union and immigration, both of which were conditionally accepted by the party's leadership.[19] Moreover, AN presented itself as a party promoting national cohesion, national identity and patriotism.

Regarding institutional reforms, the party was a long-time supporter of presidentialism and a plurality voting system, and came to support also federalism and to fully accept the alliance with the Northern League, although the relations with that party were tense at times, especially about issues regarding national unity.

Gianfranco Fini, a moderniser who saw Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron as role-models, impressed an ambitious political line to the party, combining the pillars of conservative ideology like security, family values and patriotism with a progressive approach in other areas such as stem cell research and supporting voting rights for legal aliens. Some of these positions were not shared by many members of the party, most of whom staunchly opposed stem cell research and artificial insemination.[12]

National Alliance was a heterogeneous political party and within it members were divided in different factions, some of them very organized:

• Protagonist Right (Destra Protagonista), headed by Maurizio Gasparri and Ignazio La Russa, was the bigger faction and the closest to Forza Italia, due to its liberal-conservative stances.
• New Alliance (Nuova Alleanza), formerly called Right and Freedom (Destra e Libertà), headed by Altero Matteoli and Adolfo Urso, was formed by the staunchest supporters of Gianfranco Fini within the party and supported a liberal political agenda.
• Social Right (Destra Sociale), led by Gianni Alemanno, advocated a more "social" approach to economic policy and was considered at the right of the party. It had close ties with the General Labour Union.
• D-Destra, led by Francesco Storace, was the most conservative component of the party, proud of the MSI's tradition and in open opposition to Fini. Formed as a split from the Social Right, in July 2007 the group finally left AN and launched The Right.
• Christian Reformists (Cristiano Riformisti) was a minor Christian democratic faction.

In the party there was also a group named Ethic-Religious Council, whose board members included Gaetano Rebecchini (founder, ex-DC), Riccardo Pedrizzi (president), Franco Tofoni (vice president), Luigi Gagliardi (secretary-general), Alfredo Mantovano, Antonio Mazzocchi and Riccardo Migliori. This was not a faction but an official organism within the party and expressed the official position of the party on ethical and religious matters. Sometimes the group criticized Gianfranco Fini for his liberal views on abortion, artificial insemination and stem-cell research, which led some notable ex-DC members as Publio Fiori to leave the party. Some members of the council, such as Pedrizzi and Mantovano were described as members of an unofficial Catholic Right faction.

The party had roughly 10–15% support across Italy, having its strongholds in Central and Southern Italy (Lazio 18.6%, Umbria 15.2%, Marche 14.3%, Abruzzo 14.3%, Apulia 13.2%, Sardinia 12.9%, Tuscany 12.6% and Campania 12.6% in the last general election), scoring badly in Lombardy (10.2%) and Sicily (10.9%), while competing in the North-East (Friuli-Venezia Giulia 15.5% and Veneto 11.3%).

The party had a good showing in the first general election to which it took part (13.5% in 1994) and reached 15.7% in 1996, when Fini tried for the first time to replace Silvio Berlusconi as leader of the centre-right. From that moment the party suffered an electoral decline, but remained the third force of Italian politics.

In the 2006 general election, the final election to which the party participated with its own list, AN won 12.3% of the vote, securing 71 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 41 in the Senate. In the 2008 general election the party had 90 deputies[21] and 48 senators[22] elected. The electoral results of National Alliance in general (Chamber of Deputies) and European Parliament elections since 1994 are shown in the chart below.

The electoral results of National Alliance in the 10 most populated regions of Italy are shown in the table below.

• President: Gianfranco Fini (1995–2008), Ignazio La Russa (acting, 2008–2009)
  • Coordinator: Maurizio Gasparri (1995–1998), Ignazio La Russa (2003–2005)
  • Spokesman: Francesco Storace (1995–1997), Adolfo Urso (1997–2001), Antonio Landolfi (2001–2005), Andrea Ronchi (2005–2009)
  • Head of Political Secretariat: Donato Lamorte (1995–2002), Andrea Ronchi (2002–2004), Carmelo Briguglio (2002–2004), Donato Lamorte (2004–2009)
• President of National Assembly: Domenico Fisichella (1995–2005), Marcello Perina (2005–2006), Francesco Servello (2006–2009)
• Organizational Coordinator: Giuseppe Tatarella (1995–1998), Altero Matteoli (1998–2002), Donato Lamorte (2002–2004), Italo Bocchino (2004–2005), Marco Martinelli (2005–2009)
• Administrative Secretary: Francesco Pontone (1995–2009)
• Party Leader at the Chamber of Deputies: Raffaele Valensise (1994–1995), Giuseppe Tatarella (1995–1998), Gustavo Selva (1998–2001), Ignazio La Russa (2001–2003), Gian Franco Anedda (2003–2004), Ignazio La Russa (2004–2008), Italo Bocchino (deputy-leader of PdL's group, 2008–2009)
• Party Leader at the Senate: Giulio Maceratini (1994–2001), Domenico Nania (2001–2006), Altero Matteoli (2006–2008), Maurizio Gasparri (leader of PdL's group, 2008–2009)
• Party Leader at the European Parliament: Cristiana Muscardini (1994–2004), Roberta Angelilli (2004–2009)

• 
  1995–2009
• 
  2006 general election

• Official website
• Azione Giovani