Christian Democracy, whose electoral base was also composed of conservatives suspicious of the Socialists, increasing the party's share to a historical record of 7.0% in the 1963 general election. After Malagodi's resignation from the party's leadership, the PLI was defeated with a humiliating 1.3% in the 1976 election, but tried to re-gain strength by supporting social reforms such as divorce. The Pentapartito After Valerio Zanone took over as party secretary in 1976, the PLI adopted a more centrist and, to some extent, social-liberal approach. The new secretary opened to the Socialists, hoping to put in action a sort of Lib–Lab cooperation, similar to that experimented in the United Kingdom from 1977 to 1979 between the Labour Party and the Liberals. In 1983 the PLI finally joined the pentapartito coalition composed also of the Christian Democracy (DC), the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) and the Italian Republican Party (PRI). In the 1980s the party was led by Renato Altissimo and Alfredo Biondi. With the uncovering of the corruption system nicknamed Tangentopoli by the Mani pulite investigation, many government parties experienced a rapid loss of their support. In the first months the PLI seemed immune to investigation. However, as the investigations further unravelled, the party turned out to be part of the corruption scheme. Francesco De Lorenzo, the Liberal Minister of Health, was one of the most loathed politicians in Italy for his corruption, that involved stealing funds from the sick, and allowing commercialisation of medicines based on bribes. Dissolution and diaspora The party was disbanded on 6 February 1994 and at least four heirs tried to take its legacy: the Federation of Liberals (FdL), led by Raffaello Morelli and Valerio Zanone, the official successor party, first joined the Patto Segni, then The Olive Tree; the Union of the Centre (UdC), led by Alfredo Biondi, Raffaele Costa and Enrico Nan, was an associate party of Forza Italia (FI) and was merged into it in 1998 (other Liberals, including Antonio Martino, Giuliano Urbani, Giancarlo Galan and Paolo Romani, directly joined FI); the Liberal Left (SL) of Gianfranco Passalacqua, representing the party's left-wingers, was finally merged into the Democrats of the Left in 2006; the Italian Liberal Right (DLI), led by Gabriele Pagliuzzi and Giuseppe Basini, joined National Alliance (AN). In a few years after 1994, most Liberals migrated to FI, while others joined the centre-left coalition, especially Democracy