Christian Democratic Party

Christian Democratic Party
Leader	Paolo Demarco
Chairperson	Fabio Guglielmo Serra
Founded	May 20, 1936 (1936-05-20)
Headquarters	Piazza San Gabriele 120/4b, Timiocato 1510AB
Youth wing	Young Christian Democrats
Women's wing	Christian Democrat Women's League
Ideology	Conservatism, Christian democracy
Political position	Centre-right to right-wing
International affiliation	Personalist Democrat International
Colours	Dark green
Senato	20 / 100
Constazione	171 / 715
Website
www.dcp.org.pc
Political parties

This article is about the Pacitalian political party. For other similarly named parties, see Christian Democratic Party (disambiguation) or Category:Christian democratic parties.

The Christian Democratic Party of Pacitalia (Christian Democrats, Pacitalian: Partito Pacitaliana Democrate Cristiane, PDC) is a centre-right, Christian democratic political party in Pacitalia.

Founded in 1936, the Christian Democratic Party was a fringe party for most of the twentieth century. As the Federation of Progressive Democrats (FPD) began to dominate the political centre in the 1980s and 1990s, social conservatives, many of whom had previously supported the defunct Civil Party, switched their support to the Christian Democrats, helping it to grow into a more mainstream party and eventually enter Pacitalia's parliament at the 2000 election.

The party has yet to form government at the national level and it has never been part of a governing coalition. The Christian Democrats were typically a "third party" (not the main opposition) in the Constazione and Senato over the past 20 years. In the 2023 parliamentary elections, the party supplanted the FPD as the largest centre-right party, and became the second largest in both houses of parliament. Their candidate for Archonate won the runoff - the first time the party has won a nationwide office.

At the regional level, the Christian Democrats have held majority control of the Provencian regional council since 2018, and Cauda since 2021. They previously held plurality control of the Caudese council from 2018 to 2021. The party has held a plurality of seats on the regional councils in Beracanto and Trasteveria since 2018.

As of 2023, the Christian Democratic Party is currently the second-largest party by membership, behind the PSDC, and the largest by fundraising income.

In December 2023, immediately following the elections that year, the party dropped its previous black and gold colour scheme and reverted to using dark green as their official colour. They also introduced a new logo featuring a dove holding an olive branch. Christian democratic parties in Pacitalia have historically used this type of imagery and colour scheme.

Ideology

Ideologically, the Christian Democrats are a typical conservative party. The party's constitution describes it as explicitly rooted in Catholic values, but it is worth noting that Pacitalia's constitution bans religious political parties and, legally speaking, the party is secular.

While largely supportive of the concept of free markets, the party advocates for reasonable regulation of the private sector, to avoid the prospect of unfettered capitalism and greed, viewing these outcomes as immoral. The party generally supports progressive taxation, where wealthier people pay more tax and poorer people pay less or none at all — though does not favour explicit wealth taxes like those proposed by left-wing parties.

The party adheres to Christian social teachings, favouring state intervention where necessary, and policies that provide for the common good, such as a welfare state and social safety net. At the same time, Christian democrats in Pacitalia believe strongly in private property rights, individual responsibility, and self-determination as social norms.

The Christian Democrats have maintained traditional, conservative positions on numerous social issues. As of 2023, the party, as per its constitution, argues that marriage is a religious institution rather than a civil one. It continues to oppose same-sex marriage, abortion, contraception, and medically assisted dying. The constitution also states the party's opposition to women attending university, and children being born out of wedlock; though, in recent years, party leaders have said the language is outdated.

Former leader Vincenzo Promarche and his successor, Paolo Demarco, have staked out more moderate positions over the past decade, and said that debates around major social issues have been settled, in an attempt to assuage concerns the party would roll back certain rights if in power.

Despite the attempt to appeal to more moderate voters, the Christian Democrats faced criticism for nominating controversial billionaire Carmine Bello as their candidate for archonate in the 2016 and 2017 elections. Nevertheless, Bello, known for his devout Catholicism, brash communication style, and offensive remarks directed toward LGBTQ+ people and women, cultivated a wide base of support that the party had never managed on its own, and he was nearly elected.

The Christian Democrats' voting base tends to skew naturally towards practicing Christians, men, voters over 40, nuclear ("traditional") families and Afro-Pacitalians. Greco- and Romanian-Pacitalians, who are mostly Orthodox, largely vote for other parties, as they view the party as exclusively Catholic. The party draws almost all its support from rural areas and smaller cities and tends to do extremely poorly in major urban areas due to its more conservative ideology.

Party leaders

Name	Served from	Served until	Notes

Electoral performance

Constazione Repubblicana

Election	Leader	Electorate votes		Party list votes		Electorate seats		Party list seats		Total seats		Position	Result
		No.	Share	No.	Share	No.	±	No.	±	No.	±
2007	Marco Quirinamo	290,009	0.1%	3,943,181	1.5%	0 / 270	N/A	6 / 445	N/A	6 / 715	1	5th	Opposition
2009	Vincenzo Promarche	16,579,390	5.8%	23,018,734	8.0%	17 / 270	17	36 / 445	30	53 / 715	47	5th	Opposition
2011	Vincenzo Promarche	12,212,623	4.7%	15,219,383	5.8%	6 / 270	11	26 / 445	10	32 / 715	21	5th	Opposition
2014	Vincenzo Promarche	14,576,610	5.2%	20,048,178	6.9%	3 / 270	3	31 / 445	5	34 / 715	2	6th	Opposition
2017	Vincenzo Promarche	18,528,261	5.6%	25,757,190	7.9%	7 / 270	4	35 / 445	4	42 / 715	8	5th	Opposition
2020	Vincenzo Promarche	20,769,501	6.4%	18,462,067	5.7%	4 / 270	3	25 / 445	10	29 / 715	13	3rd	Opposition
2023	Paolo Demarco	79,541,224	23.5%	90,372,369	26.7%	52 / 270	48	119 / 445	94	171 / 715	142	2nd	Opposition

Senato Repubblicana

Election	Leader	Votes		Seats		Position	Result
		No.	Share	No.	Change
2007	Marco Quirinamo	2,010,581	0.8%	0 / 96	0	7th	Not seated
2009	Vincenzo Promarche	18,887,376	6.6%	7 / 96	7	6th	Minority (opposition)
2011	Vincenzo Promarche	13,037,318	5.1%	6 / 96	1	5th	Majority (non-governing)
2014	Vincenzo Promarche	15,106,175	5.4%	4 / 96	2	5th	Majority (non-governing)
2017	Vincenzo Promarche	26,230,110	8.2%	3 / 96	1	6th	Minority (opposition)
2020	Vincenzo Promarche	20,913,031	6.5%	2 / 100	1	4th	Minority (opposition)
2023	Paolo Demarco	76,383,134	22.8%	20 / 100	18	2nd	Minority (opposition)

Archonate of the Pacitalian Republic

Election	Candidate	First-round votes			Runoff election			Result
		No.	Share	Position	No.	Share	Position
2007	Angelo Retuzzi	4,860,695	2.3%	4th				Eliminated in first round
2010	No candidate (endorsed FPD's Dragomir Dobrogeanu)
2016	Carmine Bello	84,103,228	22.5%	1st	124,681,867	50.0%	1st	Won in runoff †
2017	Carmine Bello	53,365,537	18.4%	4th				Eliminated in first round
2023	Abeo Bamidele	108,705,106	38.0%	1st	151,863,162	53.5%	1st	Elected

Notes

References