In April 2007, a tribunal in Rome sided with the former leadership and declared invalid both the election of D'Andria as secretary and the XVII Congress of the party, which confirmed him as leader in January.

The party was led ad interim by Carta until the Congress of October 2007 (the XVII, as that of January was declared invalid) elected Mimmo Magistro as new secretary.

D'Andria, who continued to consider himself to be the legitimate leader of PSDI, launched in June his Party of Democratic Reformers (PRD), open to "socialists, Christians, radicals, liberals, republicans and greens".

On 29 March 2008, the National Committee proposed to its members and voters to vote according to their conscience, favouring those political forces that could stop the emerging two-party system.

[5] In mid-November 2011, 28 members out of 31 of the outgoing National Council, including Magistro, left the PSDI in order to form a new party named Social Democrats (iSD).

[7] A recomposition was made difficult by the fact that D'Andria was keen on an alliance with the centre-right (three MPs of PdL, namely Massimo Baldini, Giancarlo Lehner, and Paolo Russo, were close to the new PSDI),[8][9][10] while Magistro aligned the iSD with the centre-left.