The party elected one senator, Valerio Carrara, but, after a few days from the election, he surprisingly switched to Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party, leaving IdV without parliamentary representation for the next five years. From isolation to electoral success (2001–2009) In the 2004 European Parliament election Di Pietro teamed up with Achille Occhetto, a former leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), under the banner "Civil Society Di Pietro–Occhetto". The electoral list gained 2.1% of the national vote and both men were elected MEPs. After the election, Occhetto immediately renounced to his seat and was replaced by Giulietto Chiesa, a communist journalist, who sat with the Party of European Socialists Group. In 2005 IdV joined The Union, a new centre-left coalition led by Prodi, who won the primary election with 74.2% of the vote, defeating also Di Pietro (3.3%). In early 2006 Leoluca Orlando, former mayor of Palermo, some splinters from the Union of Democrats for Europe (UDEUR), including Pino Pisicchio and Egidio Pedrini, and former DS such as Fabio Evangelisti and Federico Palomba, joined the party, in an effort of broadening its electoral base. The Union narrowly won the 2006 general election, IdV scored a mere 2.1% and Di Pietro was sworn in as Minister of Infrastructures in the Prodi II Cabinet. After the fall of Prodi's government, Di Pietro formed an alliance with the Democratic Party (PD) for the 2008 general election. The coalition was defeated by Berlusconi's centre-right, but IdV obtained 4.4% of the vote, 29 deputies and 14 senators. Following the election, IdV formed its own groups in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, instead of joining the Democrats in a joint group as promised, and started a competition with its main ally. In October 2008, Veltroni, who distanced from Di Pietro many times, declared that "on some issues he [Di Pietro] is distant from the democratic language of the centre-left"; however, the PD decided to support Carlo Costantini (IdV) in the 2008 regional election in Abruzzo. Costantini was defeated, but in the event IdV came close to the PD (15.0%–19.6%). In the 2009 European Parliament election the list got 8.0% of the national vote, quadrupling the votes obtained five years before and gaining 7 seats. In the run-up for the election Di Pietro recruited to run in IdV lists Pino Arlacchi, a former senator for the