Internal Structure
Before being merged into the PdL, Forza Italia had a President (currently Silvio Berlusconi), two Vice-Presidents (Giulio Tremonti and Roberto Formigoni), a Presidential Committee (presided by Claudio Scajola) and a National Council (presided by Alfredo Biondi).
As the President is the leader of the party, a national coordinator was in charge of internal organization and day-to-day political activity, similarly to the secretary-general in many European parties. Moreover the party had thematic departments and regional, provincial or metropolitan coordination boards plus a lot of affiliate clubs (Club Azzurro) all over Italy.
It has been claimed that Forza Italia had no internal democracy because there was no way of changing the leader of the party from below (although the party's constitution makes it possible). Key posts in the party structure were appointed by Berlusconi or by his delegates. Forza Italia's organization was based on the idea of a "party of the elected people", giving more importance to the whole electorate than to party's members.
Party national-level conventions did not have normally elections to choose the party leadership (although the National Congress elected some members of the National Council), and they seemed to be more like events arranged for propaganda purposes. However, Berlusconi was highly popular among his party fellows, and it was unlikely he could be overthrown if such an election were to occur.
Within the party there was a long debate over organization. The original idea was the so-called "light party" (partito leggero), intended to be different from Italian traditional, bureaucratic and self-referential, party machines. This was the line of the early founders of the party, notably Marcello Dell'Utri and Antonio Martino. However Claudio Scajola and most former Christian Democrats supported a more capillary-based organization, in order to make participate as much people as possible, and a more collegial, participative and democratic decision-making process.
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