History
The party was founded in 1993 as a split from Democratic Alliance and as the continuation of the Populars for the Reform, a split from Christian Democracy in 1992, whose principal aim was electoral reform from proportional representation to a plurality voting system.
The party contested the 1994 general election within the Pact for Italy coalition, along with the Italian People's Party and with Mario Segni as candidate for Prime Minister. The PS included in its lists Republicans (Giorgio La Malfa, Alberto Zorzoli, Vittorio Dotti, Danilo Poggiolini and Carla Mazzuca), Liberals (Valerio Zanone, Pietro Milio and Luigi Compagna), Socialists (Giuliano Amato, Giulio Tremonti and Claudio Nicolini), Social Democrats (Enrico Ferri and Gian Franco Schietroma) and several former Christian Democrats (Mario Segni himself, Gianni Rivera, Alberto Michelini, Elisabetta Gardini, Michele Cossa, Livio Filippi, Vincenzo Viola, etc.).
The PS won 4.7% of the vote and 13 deputies, but soon after the election it split in many factions. The group around Alberto Michelini and Giulio Tremonti, for instance, founded the Liberal Democratic Foundation and decided to support the Berlusconi I Cabinet (Tremonti even became Finance Minister); by the 1996 they had joined Forza Italia.
In the 1995 regional elections, the Pact formed a list named Pact of Democrats, along with the Italian Socialists and Democratic Alliance, gaining mixed results and in November to Florence Gian Piero Ventura, secretary of the youthful group, it has founded the movement "Young People for The Olive Tree" with Romano Prodi e Walter Veltroni. In the 1996 general election the party was part of Italian Renewal and got eight seats at the Chamber of Deputies of Italy (Diego Masi, Giuseppe Bicocchi, Elisa Pozza Tasca, Gianni Rivera, Antonino Mangiacavallo, Gianantonio Mazzocchin, Bonaventura Lamacchia, Paolo Manca) and one seat at the Senate of the Italian Republic (Carla Mazzuca Poggiolini).
In 1999, after having contributed to the foundation of the Democratic Union for the Republic with Francesco Cossiga and Clemente Mastella, the PS attracted some former Radicals from Forza Italia (Marco Taradash and Giuseppe Calderisi), while others left the party to join The Democrats (Elisa Pozza Tasca, Danilo Poggiolini, Carla Mazzuca, Livio Filippi and Vincenzo Viola). In the 1999 European Parliament election the party formed a joint list with National Alliance and Segni was re-elected MEP.
In 2001 the PS decided not to present lists for the general election, but Michele Cossa, member of the Sardinian Reformers, the regional section of the party in Sardinia, was elected deputy in a single-seat constituency of Cagliari for the House of Freedoms centre-right coalition.
In 2003 the party was finally transformed into the Pact of Liberal Democrats.
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