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Primary elections were first introduced in Italy by Lega Nord in 1995,[citation needed] but were seldom used until before the 2005 regional elections.
In January 2005 the centre-left The Union coalition held open primaries in order to select its candidate for President in Apulia. More importantly, in October 2005, The Union asked its voters to choose the candidate for Prime Minister in the 2006 general election: 4.3 million voters showed up and Romano Prodi won hands down. Two years later, in October 2007: 3.5 million voters of the Democratic Party were called to elect Walter Veltroni as their first leader, the party's constituent assembly and regional leaders.
The centre-right (see House of Freedoms, The People of Freedom, centre-right coalition and Forza Italia) has held primary elections only at the local level.