Casini. The party took part to the 2006 general election with a new logo, characterised by the inclusion of the name of Casini, who also headed party electoral lists in most constituencies. Despite the defeat of the House of Freedoms, the UDC improved its electoral performance by gaining 6.8% of the vote. In the following Sicilian regional election Cuffaro was re-elected President, but the UDC's share of the vote was reduced to 13.0%, due to two factors: the presence of president's list named after Cuffaro (which obtained 5.7% and elected mostly UdC members) and the strong showing of the MpA (12.5%). Transition and splits In October 2006 Follini, a harsh critic of Berlusconi, finally left the party to form a new grouping, called Middle Italy, which was eventually merged into the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) upon its foundation in October 2007. This was the fourth split suffered by the UDC in two years after three much bigger splits: the first led by Sergio D'Antoni, who joined The Daisy (DL) in 2004; the second by Gianfranco Rotondi, who launched the Christian Democracy for the Autonomies (DCA) in 2005; the third by Raffaele Lombardo, who formed the Sicilian-based Movement for Autonomy (MpA) later that year. After the departure of Follini, however, Casini became highly critical of Berlusconi too and further distanced the UDC from him. A fifth major split happened at the end of January 2008 when Bruno Tabacci and Mario Baccini left the party because Casini seemed eager to re-join Berlusconi for the upcoming election, after that the Prodi II Cabinet had not passed through a vote of confidence. Shortly afterwards, when Casini refused to merge his party into Berlusconi's then-new political movement, The People of Freedom (PdL), the UDC was joined by The Rose for Italy of Tabacci, Baccini and Savino Pezzotta, as well as by two leading members of Forza Italia (FI), Ferdinando Adornato and Angelo Sanza. On the other side, the UDC was left by those who wanted to continue the alliance with Berlusconi: Giovanardi and his faction (the Liberal Populars) joined the PdL, citing that the 72% of UDC voters wanted the party to do so. They were soon followed by many others. Union of the Centre On 28 February 2008 the UDC announced that it would contest the 2008 general election under the banner of the "Union of the Centre" (UdC), in alliance with The Rose