Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol

The Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol ("Sozialdemokratische Partei Südtirols", SPS) was a regionalist social-democratic and hard-line German-speaking political party active in the Province of Bolzano-Bozen.

It was launched in 1972 by Hans Dietl, former provincial deputy from the left-wing of the South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP) and member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 1963 to 1972, who was expelled from that party in 1971 for having taken a hard line over an agreement between the provincial and the national government known as "Pacchetto".

In the 1972 general election Dietl was the candidate of the hard-liners, including the Party of Independents, in the single-seat constituency of Brixen and won 20.8% of the vote, the major defection from SVP since then. SPS obtained its best result in 1973, when it won 5.1% of the votes and got two provincial deputies elected (Hans Dietl, who left the party soon after, and Wilhelhm Erschbaumer), but since then suffered a decline in term of votes as the SVP re-organized itself as a multi-factional catch-all party with the left-wingers united in the "Arbeitnehmer" faction. Erschbaumer himselft left and re-joined SVP in 1982. [http://www.uibk.ac.at/politikwissenschaft/mitarbeiterinnen/pallaver/pdf/pallaver_561-600.pdf] [http://www.consiglio-bz.org/it/archivio_storico.htm] [http://elezionistorico.interno.it/liste.php?tp=S&dt=07/05/1972&cta=I&tpEnte=L&tpSeg=C&numEnte=406&sut1=4&sut2=6&sut3=0&descEnte=%20Regione:%20TRENTINO-ALTO%20ADIGE%20-%20Collegio:%20BRESSANONE&descArea=&codTipoSegLeader=]

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