 several political parties operate in italy, and historically there have been even more than today. no one party has ever had the chance of gaining power alone and thus parties must work with each other to form coalition governments. ==history== between 1945 and 1994, italian politics was dominated by two major parties: christian democracy, the party of government, and the italian communist party, the main opposition party. the other opposition party was the post-fascist italian social movement. during its almost fifty years in government, christian democracy chose its coalition partners among four parties: the italian socialist party, the italian democratic socialist party, the italian republican party and the italian liberal party. the christian democrats led the government consecutively for 46 but five years. between 1983 to 1991, they steadily shared government with the socialists, the republicans, the democratic socialists and the liberals altogether. these were the years when several northern regional parties demanding autonomy organised themselves at the regional level. in 1991 they federated themselves into the northern league, which became the country's fourth largest party in the 1992 general election. in 1992â1994, the political system was shaken by a series of corruption scandals known collectively as tangentopoli. these events led to the disappearance of the five parties of government. consequently the communists, who had evolved to become democratic party of the left in 1991, and the post-fascists, who launched the national alliance, gained strength. following the 1994 general election media tycoon silvio berlusconi became prime minister at the head of a coalition composed mainly of three parties: its brand new party called forza italia (joined by many members of the former mainstream parties), the national alliance and the northern league. between 1996 and 2008, italian political parties were organised into two big coalitions, the centre-right pole for freedoms (which was renamed house of freedoms after the re-entry of lega nord in 2000) and the olive tree (part of the new, broader coalition the union in 2005) on the centre-left. the centre-left governed from 1996 to 2001 and again between 2006 and 2008, while the house of freedoms was in government between 2001 and 2006. in 2008 the union ceased to exist and the newly founded democratic party decided to break the alliance with the communist refoundation party and the other parties of the coalition, except [[italy 
Italy_politics-related_lists Lists_of_political_parties_by_country Political_parties_in_Italy