In April 2017, Ferrero was replaced as secretary by Maurizio Acerbo, a former member of the Chamber of Deputies. In the 2018 general election, the PRC was part of the Power to the People electoral list, which obtained 1.1% of the vote and no seats. The majority of the party following the October 2004 congress was led by Fausto Bertinotti (59.2%) and viewed the PRC as the representative of the anti-globalization movement in Italy. Other factions strongly opposed Bertinotti's innovations. These included the hard-line traditionalist Being Communists (26.2%) which was composed of former followers of Armando Cossutta as well as the Trotskyists of Critical Left, Communist Project and HammerSickle (14.6% together). Communist Project, which opposed the party's participation in the Prodi II Cabinet, unfolded shortly after the 2006 general election. A group led by Francesco Ricci established the Communist Alternative Party, others, led by the Trotskyite Marco Ferrando, formed the Workers' Communist Party, while a tiny minority chose to stay in the party and launched Countercurrent. In February 2007, senator Franco Turigliatto of Critical Left, led by Salvatore Cannavò, voted twice against the government's foreign policy, leading Romano Prodi to temporarily resign from Prime Minister. In April, Turigliatto was expelled from the party and Critical Left was suspended from it, leading to its final split and establishment as a party in December. Turigliatto's ejection was supported also by Claudio Grassi (leader of Being Communists) and this caused a break-up of the faction. A group led by Fosco Giannini launched an alternative faction named The Ernesto (from the eponymous communist publication), but it would suffer the 2008 split of Communist Left, which would splinter in 2011 into Communist Left and Communists Together/The Future City. Following the severe defeat of the party in the 2008 general election, a group of "bertinottiani" composed mainly of former members of Proletarian Democracy and led by Paolo Ferrero and Giovanni Russo Spena allied with the other minority factions, notably including Being Communists, to force Franco Giordano's resignation from secretary. Subsequently, in the July congress Ferrero's and Grassi's Refoundation in Movement motion (40.1%) faced the bulk of "bertinottiani", who organized themselves around a motion named "Manifesto for the Refoundation" (47.6%) with Nichi Vendola as standard-bearer.