ABSTRACT: The text informs of the problems raised by the initiative to launch the "Democratic Party" on the model of "Anglo-Saxon democracy" and of the "New Deal". Part of the Manifesto-Appeal is quoted integrally as well as part of Marco Pannella's (1) statement of 30 August, when he declared "it takes an immediate, all-out challenge of a political confrontation", with the appropriate objectives, contents, methods and means.

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 26 October 1993)

How and with whom to build the "Democratic Party", on the model more of the Anglo-Saxon democracy and of the New Deal than of the continental history of this century? There have been various attempts to assemble the foundations of the "Democratic Party" on the model of the New Deal or of the Anglo-Saxon democracy: from the project of the alternative force ("first force") with the lay parties and the socialists to the hypothesis of a lay federation to include liberals, republicans and Marco Pannella; from the idea of the Democratic Constituent to build with the Communist Party to these weeks' attempts made by the Club Pannella for the Democratic Party. "In Italy", explains the Manifesto-Appeal signed by dozens and dozens of intellectuals throughout Italy, "there is a widespread need for rules and political contents with a strong, clear, traditional democratic model and for popular bills on the issues of a first-past-the-post law, of presidentialism, of anti-statalism, of justice and information, which are ne

cessary both to favour the growth and affirmation of this model and to create the Democratic Party on the basis thereof".

"The Liste Pannella will need to represent the engine and the embryo of this party". "The political force we plan to commit immediately also on the electoral level - Marco Pannella explained in a declaration made on 30 August - will centre on a group of competent professionals, i.e. proven opponents of the regime, in the name of civil rights and duties, of the democratic and federal state, and who on these positions have built an alternative to party power". "On the basis of this promoting group, we will nonetheless accept anyone who has been part of the party regime, who has shared its mistakes and faults who, precisely because of this have nothing to lose, intend to support the liberal, federalist, democratic, anti-party power, anti-corporativist alternative, against the new block of power that is preparing to guarantee continuity and new strength to the vanquished regime through an internal change of the guard".

We intend to launch an immediate, all-out challenge to the political confrontation of objectives, contents, methods and instruments.

Translator's notes

(1) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.