After a short Giulio Andreotti's government, Mariano Rumor returned to the office of prime minister, leading a centre-left coalition composed by DC, PSI, PRI, and PSDI from July 1973 to March 1974.

[10] Moro IV Cabinet, with the republican leader Ugo La Malfa as Deputy Prime Minister, started a first dialogue with the PCI, with the aim of beginning a new phase to strengthen the Italian democratic system.

Their main themes were the safeguarding of the traditional nuclear family model and the Roman Catechism;[15][16] while most left-wing political forces, including PCI and PSI, supported the "no" faction.

Fanfani thought that a "no" victory could have given him the control of in his own party again; in fact other key figures like Moro, Rumor, Emilio Colombo and Francesco Cossiga, who believed in the defeat at the referendum, kept a low profile during the campaign.

The ideological distances between DC and other allies of the Organic Centre-left coalition emerged during the referendum campaign were one of the main factor that led to the crisis of that political alliance in the mid-1970s.