House of Freedoms

Casa delle Libertà, or House of Freedoms in English, is an Italian right-wing party alliance, composed of Forza Italia, National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale), Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC), Socialist Party New PSI (Nuovo PSI); the small PRI and Northern League (Lega Nord), led by national media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi.

The alliance won the 1994 elections, but the resulting government was short lived since the Northern League broke free and went to opposition.

After a 5-year left-wing government, Berlusconi managed to cool down the hotheads of the League, and won the elections again (2001), this time with a stable government. It sought to undermine the proportionality rules of the Italian Additional Member System of elections by running many of its constituency candidates under a decoy list called Abolizione Scorporo, a title which explicity stated its opposition to the counting rules; its tactic largely worked because it had more support than the left-wing Olive Tree (Uniti nell'Ulivo) alliance.

In 2003 it was routed in local elections by the Olive Tree alliance, and the League has threatened to pull out of the House of Freedoms. In 2005, once again, it was severely routed in regional elections, losing 6 (of 8) Italian regions. This led to a crisis of the government, particularly after the UDC pulled its four ministers out. A few weeks later, a new government was formed on April 23 2005 with the same six parties (FI, AN, LN, UDC, NPSI, PRI) and mostly the same ministers as before.