role in Italy
TITLE: Italy: Political parties
SECTION: Political parties
...Forza Italia (FI; loosely translatable as “Go Italy”), an alliance created in 1994 by the media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi and dedicated to the principles of the market economy; the Northern League (Lega Nord; LN), formed in 1991, a federalist and fiscal-reform movement with large support in the northern regions; and the National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale; AN), which...
TITLE: Italy: The rise of Berlusconi
SECTION: The rise of Berlusconi
...In 1992, when numerous Socialist and Christian Democratic leaders were being arrested and the Communists were seeking a new identity after the failure of state socialism in eastern Europe, the Northern League secured almost 20 percent of the northern vote in the parliamentary elections. Later it advocated a new constitution with a federal Italy divided into three autonomous republics that...