Sardinian Action Party

Infobox_Political_Party
party_name = Sardinian Action Party
party_name_italian = Partito Sardo d'Azione
party_
party_status = Italian Regional Party
leader = Giacomo Sanna
coalition = None
newspaper = None
ideology = Regionalism, Social democracy
website = Federazione di Cagliari: [http://www.psdaz-fedca.it www.psdaz-fedca.it] Sezione di Sassari: [http://www.psdaz-ichnos.com www.psdaz-ichnos.com]

The Sardinian Action Party ("Partito Sardo d'Azione", PSd'Az) is a regionalist social-democratic Italian political party active in Sardinia.

History

The party was founded after World War II by Emilio Lussu, secretary for Southern Italy of the Action Party during the war, and other veterans from the "Sassari brigade", a social-democratic group of the Italian resistance movement. Lussu himself left the party in 1948 to found the short-lived Sardinian Socialist Action Party, which joined the Italian Socialist Party in 1949, as many other PSd'Az members did latterly. The two parties won 10.4 and 6.6% respectively in the first regional election in 1949.

After a decline in term of votes in the 1960s and 1970s, the party re-gained strength in the 1980s (13.8% in 1984 and 12.4% in 1989). Following these results, Sardist Mario Melis was President of Sardinia between 1984 and 1989 at the head of a five-party coalition composed also by the Italian Communist Party, the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Democratic Socialist Party and the Italian Republican Party.

This was the highest point in PSd'Az history: the party was represented in the Italian Parliament from 1976 to 1994 and Mario Melis was a MEP from 1989 to 1994.

In the 2003 regional election PSd'Az won 3.9% in the Region, getting elected two regional deputies. The party is part of the centre-left coalition which governs Sardinia, led by President Renato Soru. In 2007 one of the two regional deputies left the party to join the regional Democratic Party.

In the 2006 general election leader Giacomo Sanna, due to an electoral pact named Pact for the Autonomies, was candidate of Lega Nord for the Senate in Lombardy, but failed to get elected. The party run alone in the 2008 general election, winning only 1.5% in the Region.

External links

* [http://www.sitos.regione.sardegna.it/nur_on_line/storia/unificazione_italiana_13.htm History of the Sardinian Action Party]