UdC joined Us with Italy (NcI), a pro-Berlusconi centrist electoral list formed by AP splinters (two groups, a Christian-democratic one led by Maurizio Lupi and a liberal one led by Enrico Costa), Direction Italy (DI), Civic Choice (SC), Act!, CP and the MpA, with the goal of reaching 3%, required to win seats from proportional lists under a new electoral law. NcI was later joined also by IdeA, UdC's partner in the Chamber of Deputies. In the election the NcI obtained a mere 1.3% of the vote and the UdC had three senators elected from single-seat constituencies: De Poli, Paola Binetti and Antonio Saccone. Soon after the election, the party quit NcI and formed a pact with FI. In the run-up of the 2022 general election the UdC first formed a joint list with Coraggio Italia (CI), then it was a founding member of Us Moderates (NM), a broader joint list within the centre-right coalition, along with CI, NcI and Italy in the Centre (IaC). Ideology Although it is the most vocal supporter of social conservatism in Italy (opposition to abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, LGBT adoption and legality of cannabis are some of its main concerns) and can be easily connected with the Christian right, the UdC is usually identified with the political centre in Italy, thanks to its roots in the Christian Democracy (DC). However The Economist once described it as a right-wing, sometimes reactionary party, which "stretches a long way from the centre". Moreover, it wrote that many UDC members are "diehard corporatists who [...] get most of their votes from the south, where many households depend either on welfare or on public-sector employment". Indeed, the party is stronger in the South and especially in Sicily, where public-sector employment is widely spread. The UDC was an independent-minded and often reluctant member of the House of Freedoms coalition from 2002 to 2008. The party's leading figure, Pier Ferdinando Casini, was critical of Silvio Berlusconi's leadership over the Italian centre-right and presented himself as a moderate alternative to populism, which, in his view, denoted the alliance between The People of Freedom (PdL) and Lega Nord. UDC's main goal, similarly to that of the Democratic Movement in France, has been to form governments beyond the left-right divide (e.g.: Monti Cabinet and Letta Cabinet) and, possibly, reassembling the remnants of the old DC and control Italian politics from the centre. In this