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The National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale) is a right-wing Italian party, formed from most of the former Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano, MSI) and conservative elements of the former Christian Democrats, the National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale, AN) was created in 1994.
Since the 1990s, Alleanza Nazionale has distanced itself from Benito Mussolini and fascism and made efforts to improve relations with Jewish groups. With most hardliners leaving the party, it now seeks to present itself as a respectable rightwing party.
Mussolini sympathisers formed the MSI following Fascism's defeat in World War II. Distinguishing itself from the MSI, the AN characterises itself as "post-Fascist" and proclaims its commitment to constitutionalism, democracy and political pluralism.
The party is led by Gianfranco Fini, formerly Youth Front leader of the MSI (widely dubbed Italy's neo-fascist party) and successor as MSI leader to Giorgio Almirante. It has taken part in the first two House of Freedoms coalition governments (1994 and 2001-) of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, in the second of which Fini is deputy prime minister and, from November 2004, foreign minister.
Other well-known party members have included Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who along with some other hardliners left the party in November 2003 when Gianfranco Fini described fascism as "an absolute evil" during his state visit to Israel in the function of Italian deputy prime minister.
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