With this in mind, the PCI dissolved itself and refounded itself as the PDS in 1991,[5] reforming its ideology to adopt acceptance of a multi-party system and the mixed economy.

[9] In 1996, the PDS explored the possibility of adopting the fist and rose emblem of the Socialist International but was prevented to do it by the Transnational Radical Party, which had obtained the right to use it in Italy in the 1970s.

Both the PDS and Federation of the Greens quickly withdrew from the cabinet on 4 May 1993 in protest against the Chamber's refusal to begin prosecution of former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi.

[12] In the following 1994 Italian general election, Occhetto was the leader of the Alliance of Progressives, a left-wing coalition of which the PDS was the largest single party.

On that occasion, the DS decided to replace the hammer and sickle of its logo with the red rose of European social democracy.

The electoral results of PDS in general (Chamber of Deputies) and European Parliament elections from 1992 to 1996 are shown in the chart below.