Party of Italian Communists  The Party of Italian Communists (, PdCI) was a communist party in Italy founded in October 1998 as a split from the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) led by Armando Cossutta, the founder and early leader of the PRC. In December 2014, the party was transformed into Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I), which would later evolve into the re-edition of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). In October 1998, the PRC was divided between those who wanted to stop supporting Romano Prodi's first government, led by PRC secretary Fausto Bertinotti; and those who wanted to continue the alliance, led by PRC president Cossutta. The central committee endorsed Bertinotti's line, but Cossutta and his followers decided to support Prodi whatsoever. The votes of "cossuttiani" were not enough and the government lost a confidence vote in Parliament. The dissidents, who controlled the majority of deputies and senators, split and formed a rival communist outfit, the PdCI, which immediately joined the first cabinet led by Massimo D'Alema, leader of the Democrats of the Left and first post-communist to hold the job of Prime Minister of Italy. Under D'Alema, PdCI's Oliviero Diliberto served as Minister of Justice. Despite the split of most of PRC's parliamentary representation, the PRC remained more popular than the PdCI with voters, both in the 1999 European Parliament election (4.3% to 2.0%) and the 2001 general election (5.0% to 1.7%). Diliberto, who had been elected secretary in 2000, led the PdCI to continue its participation in the centre-left coalition (known at the time as The Olive Tree) at the 2001 general election, which registered a victory by Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right House of Freedoms coalition. The PdCI obtained 1.7% of the vote and a handful of deputies and senators. In the 2006 general election, the party was a member of the winning The Union coalition and won 2.4% of the vote and 16 deputies while the Together with the Union electoral list consisting of the PdCI, the Federation of the Greens and United Consumers won 11 senators. Subsequently, the PdCI entered Prodi's second government, which would last until January 2008. In the meantime, Diliberto had become the undisputed leader of the party and since 2005 clashes between him and Cossutta became frequent.