Liberal Popular Alliance – Autonomies Alleanza Liberalpopolare – Autonomie
President	Denis Verdini
Founded	28 July 2015
Dissolved	March 2018
Split from	Forza Italia
Headquarters	Via Poli, 29Rome
Ideology	Liberalism Autonomism
Political position	Centre
Colours	Blue
Politics of Italy Political parties Elections

TheLiberal Popular Alliance, whose full name wasLiberal Popular Alliance – Autonomies (Italian:Alleanza Liberalpopolare – Autonomie,ALA), was acentrist andliberalpolitical party in Italy. ALA members were known asVerdiniani, from the name of their leaderDenis Verdini, who was formerly a long-time member and national coordinator of three successive centre-right parties led bySilvio Berlusconi (Forza Italia,The People of Freedom and againForza Italia) until July 2015, when he broke with Berlusconi in order to support thegovernment led byMatteo Renzi, leader of the centre-leftDemocratic Party.

Verdini aimed at launching the "Moderates for Renzi", that would eventually include the other centrist parties supporting the government.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} After Renzi's resignation as Prime Minister in December 2016 the party lost relevance and after the2018 general election it was deprived of its parliamentary representation.

The Liberal Popular Alliance emerged in July 2015 from a split fromForza Italia (FI), led byDenis Verdini, who wanted to support the reforms put forward by theRenzi Cabinet, and was joined by senators coming from different centre-right groups, includingGreat Autonomies and Freedom (GAL),Conservatives and Reformists (CoR) andNew Centre-Right (NCD).^[7][8]Lucio Barani, who until then was the secretary of theNew Italian Socialist Party (NPSI),^[9][10] was elected president of the senatorial group. "Autonomies" was possibly added to "Liberal Popular Alliance" because of the presence of two senators of theMovement for the Autonomies–Party of Sicilians (MpA–PdS) in the group. Other than Barani, who continued to be a member of the NPSI,^[11][12][13] and the two MpA senators, the group included non-party independents.

Between September and October 2015, four senators and seven deputies left FI and joined Verdini; the deputies formed a joint sub-group with theAssociative Movement Italians Abroad (MAIE) named "Liberal Popular Alliance – Autonomies – MAIE.^{[7][14][15][16]} Between December and January 2016, the party was joined by five more senators,^[7] includingSandro Bondi, another former FI national coordinator.^[17][18] Also in January, three ALA members were elected deputy chairpersons of three Senate committees.^[19] A twentieth senator and an eight deputy joined in May.^[7][8] However, Bondi left as early as in June.^[20][21] In April 2016 the presence of two senators of the MpA, who had broken ties with FI while joining the ALA as direct members,^[22] was marked by a new name of the group in the Senate: "Liberal Popular Alliance – Autonomies (Movement for the Autonomies)".^[7]

The ALA fielded some lists for the2016 local elections, especially in theSouth and usually in support of candidates of theDemocratic Party (PD).^[23] InNaples, the largest city in which the party was present, the ALA obtained a mere 1.4% of the vote.^[24]

Between July and December 2016, the party formed joint groups withCivic Choice (SC),^{[25][26][27][28]} which were renamed "ALA – Civic Choice for the Liberal and Popular Constituent Assembly",^[8][7] and attracted two intellectual leaders from the liberal wing of the old FI:Marcello Pera, a formerPresident of the Senate, andGiuliano Urbani, a former minister of Culture inBerlusconi II Cabinet.^[29][30][31]

The ALA, SC, Pera and Urbani campaigned heavily for the "Yes" in the2016 constitutional referendum, which resulted in a defeat for the "Yes" camp and the subsequent resignation of Renzi. The ALA did not join and support the newgovernment led byPaolo Gentiloni.

In February 2017 two senators left and joinedUnion of the Centre (UDC),^[32][33] in April one deputy joinedPopular Alternative (AP), successor of the NCD,^[34] in June two senators re-joined FI,^[35] and in July another deputy joined AP.^[36] In November the party was further reduced to 4 deputies and 12 senators as the two deputies associated withCantiere Popolare (CP) and the two senators of the MpA left^[37][38] (the CP and the MpA had participated together in the2017 Sicilian regional election).^{[39][40][41][42]}

In January 2018 the party formed an alliance with theItalian Republican Party (PRI), of which Verdini had been a member until 1994. Under the ALA–PRI alliance, ALA's senatorial group was re-named "Liberal Popular Alliance – Italian Republican Party".^[7][43][44] In the2018 general election the list, which actually included only Republican candidates, obtained a mere 0.1% of the vote. Verdini himself did not vote for the list, but voted FI for the Chamber and the PD for the Senate.^[45] The party has since become inactive.

• Senate group's official website

• Defunct political parties in Italy
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