The Democratic Republicans (Repubblicani Democratici, RD) were a tiny liberal political party in Italy.
The party was founded in 2004 by splinters from the Italian Republican Party (PRI), who wanted to get rid of the alliance with the centre-right House of Freedoms coalition. Its leader was Giuseppe Ossorio. At the 2005 regional elections the party presented its list only in Campania, where it gained 1.4% and Ossorio was re-elected to the Regional Council.
In 2005 the party sided with The Union and contested the 2006 general election within the lists of Antonio Di Pietro's Italy of Values (IdV). Consequently to this pact of federation, Ossorio was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in his home region Campania and sit in the IdV caucus.
On 20 September 2007, Ossorio announced that the Democratic Republicans were joining the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) alongside with fellow ex-PRI members of the European Republicans Movement (MRE). In 2010, however, the party returned into the PRI.
Famous quotes containing the words democratic and/or republicans:
“To make Democracy work, you need an aristocratic democracy. To make Aristocracy work, you need a democratic aristocracy.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Yesterday the Electoral Commission decided not to go behind the papers filed with the Vice-President in the case of Florida.... I read the arguments in the Congressional Record and can’t see how lawyers can differ on the question. But the decision is by a strictly party vote—eight Republicans against seven Democrats! It shows the strength of party ties.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)