[9] The party president and leader was Francesco Rutelli, former mayor of Rome and prime ministerial candidate during the 2001 general election for The Olive Tree coalition, within which The Daisy electoral list won 14.5% of the national vote.

It was set up by former left-leaning Christian Democrats,[10][11][12] centrists,[13] social-liberals[12] (former Liberals and former Republicans), as well as other left-wing politicians from the former Italian Socialist Party and Federation of the Greens.

[14] However, on 12 October 2000, only PPI, Dem, UDEUR and RI agreed to join forces with a joint list called "The Daisy" for the 2001 general election.

The Daisy, led by Francesco Rutelli (who was also candidate for Prime Minister for the whole centre-left), won 14.5% of the vote, only two points less than the Democrats of the Left (DS).

The Olive Tree list, of which DL was a member since the 2004 European Parliament election, won 220 seats out of 630 in the Chamber of Deputies.

Leading members of the party included: DL was mainly composed of four factions, the first three of them supporting Francesco Rutelli's leadership: The electoral results of Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy in the 10 most populated regions of Italy are shown in the table below.