1994 Christian Democracy Leadership Election

The 1994 Christian Democracy leadership election was triggered by the term expiration of Giulio Andreotti as party secretary.

In 1989, after the resignation of Arnaldo Forlani in order to compete in the upcoming 1992 presidential election, his longstanding ally Giulio Andreotti was elected unanimously as the replacement, and was subsequently appointed as Prime Minister in June 1989 and successfully formed a new cabinet. Andreotti led a large right-wing faction named "Primavera" which oriented the DC to a catch-all party without a precise ideology, following the example of the LDP of Japan.

The leadership election was scheduled for January 1994, and it was initially thought that Martinazzoli, a senior leader of the DC, would challenge Andreotti. His candidacy was registered on December 28, and immediately received support of several MPs that, at the first round of voting, supported the incumbent secretary due to Martinazzoli center-left stance. During the second ballot, however, Silvio Berlusconi (a famous businessman who was member of the DC since 1964 even if he did not participate in events) announced his candidacy through a televised speech. Despite his inexperience, the MPs decided to vote for him due to Andreotti withdrawing, and that because of his immense fortune and popularity he would bring the DC to positive results as seen during the 1994 general election.

Berlusconi also won the popular vote in a landslide, and Martinazzoli left the party on January 26 along with several other influential politicians of the left-wing faction to create the Pact for Italy that, however, received poor results, and intended to represent the center-left of the DC that, by now, became a nationalist and center-right party.