Democracy and Socialism (Democrazia e Socialismo) was asocial-democratic political association inItaly. During the years it was a faction within theDemocrats of the Left, theSocialist Party and finally theDemocratic Party. Its leader wasGavino Angius.
Originally namedSocialists and Europeans (Socialisti ed Europei), the group was formed in 2006 as a faction within theDemocrats of the Left (DS) byGavino Angius andGiuseppe Caldarola in opposition to the creation of theDemocratic Party (PD), which they believed would have been a rejection of the principles ofsocial democracy anddemocratic socialism. Angius and his group wanted to remain members of theParty of European Socialists, as they had been since its foundation in 1992.
After the DS decided to merge into the PD in April 2007, some members (Mauro Zani,Massimo Brutti,Sergio Gentili, Giuseppe Caldarola and others) joined it, while Gavino Angius,Alberto Nigra,Franco Grillini and others (comprising two senators and two deputies) formed, along with other splinter groups of the DS, theDemocratic Left (SD).
Soon Angius and his followers felt that the new party, led byFabio Mussi, was moving too far to the left toward a close alliance with theCommunist Refoundation Party, theParty of Italian Communists and theFederation of the Greens instead of forming an alliance with the much more moderateItalian Democratic Socialists.
In September 2007 the group around Angius finally broke apart from SD and joined the Italian Democratic Socialists, theNew Italian Socialist Party ofMauro Del Bue andGianni De Michelis,The Italian Socialists, theAssociation for the Rose in the Fist,Socialism is Freedom, and other groups and associations to form theSocialist Party (PS). Since then, it took the current name and was joined byValdo Spini, another SD dissident. In 2007–2008 the group had two senators (Gavino Angius andAccursio Montalbano) and three deputies (Valdo Spini, Franco Grillini andFabio Baratella).
After the huge defeat of the PS in the2008 general election, the group around Angius supported the candidacy for party secretary ofRiccardo Nencini, who won. In September 2008, Angius declared that "the Socialist constituent assembly has failed" and that the party should take part with the Democratic Party and possibly into it to the construction of a "new reformist centre-left",[1] in line with what Nencini himself is proposing.[2] However, in October 2008 Angius and his group abandoned the PS in order to join the Democratic Party, proposing that the whole party should follow him. Angius was joined also byCinzia Dato, a formerLiberal fromDemocracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL), while Spini decided not to leave the PS.[3][4][5][6]
In the2009 Democratic Party leadership election the faction supportedPier Luigi Bersani.[7]