The split was led by Rocco Buttiglione (secretary of the Italian People's Party in 1994-95), Roberto Formigoni and Gianfranco Rotondi.
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In June 1998, Buttiglione led the party into the Democratic Union for the Republic (UDR), a new Christian democratic outfit launched by Francesco Cossiga and Clemente Mastella, who had left CCD to form the Christian Democrats for the Republic (CDR).
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Since then, the movement has been highly supportive of Silvio Berlusconi, first under the umbrella of a small party called The United Christian Democrats, then (after 1998) directly within Forza Italia, later revamped into the People of Freedom.
In January 1994 its members joined the Italian People's Party (PPI) and, a year later, they founded the United Christian Democrats (CDU), along with Rocco Buttiglione.
The Italian People's Party suffered a split of those who wanted to join Berlusconi's centre-right (the United Christian Democrats of Rocco Buttiglione) and those who wanted to ally with the left-wing Democratic Party of the Left.