Liga Fronte Veneto
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Liga Fronte Veneto is a strongly autonomist and Venetist splinter party of the Liga Veneta-Lega Nord which claims independence from Italy for Veneto.
It was formed in 1998 as the Liga Veneta Repubblica, and changed its name to Veneti d'Europa before assuming the current title after a merger with the Fronte Marco Polo. The party is led by Fabrizio Comencini who was national secretary of Liga Veneta (from 1991 the Lega Nord's branch in Veneto) from 1995 to 1998.
As of 2006 it is a minor ally in Romano Prodi's coalition The Union. This is something very curious, as the party split from the Lega Nord because of Umberto Bossi's refusal to join Silvio Berlusconi's House of Freedoms coalition in the regional government, led by Giancarlo Galan, something that Bossi’s followers did in 2000.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] From the Liga Veneta Repubblica to Veneti d'Europa
In 1998 7 out of 10 members of the Liga Veneta-Lega Nord's group in the Regional Council (Fabrizio Comencini, Ettore Beggiato, Alessio Morosin, Mariangelo Foggiato, Alberto Poirè, Michele Munaretto and Franco Roccon) founded a new party, called Liga Veneta Repubblica. They represented the more Venetist wing of the Liga Veneta, while the people who remained in the Lega Nord were above all fiscal federalists.
After a good showing (for a recent-born party) in the 1999 European elections (3.5%), they failed badly to elect some representatives in the Regional Council in 2000 elections, which were contested as Veneti d'Europa (2.5%, 0.5% under the threshold), due to the presence of another Venetist party, the Fronte Marco Polo (1.2%), and an electoral recovery of the Liga Veneta (12.0%).
[edit] The Liga Fronte Veneto
In 2001, the party (now led by the Venetist historian Ettore Beggiato) and the more fiscal federalist Fronte Marco Polo decided to join forces in the new Liga Fronte Veneto. Giorgio Vido was elected national secretary and Fabrizio Comencini national president.
In 2001 national elections Giuseppe Segato, an independentist activist in jail for having contested Italian national unity, was candidated in the party lists. Although taking more than 10% of the votes (mainly disaffected Lega Nord's voters, after the alliance with Silvio Berlusconi) in many electoral disctricts, the party was not able to elect any representative in the Parliament of Rome. The result throughout the region was in any case very good, with the 2.4% for the Italian Chamber of Deputies (proportional representation), the 4.9% for the Italian Senate and a similar result in the first-past-the-post districts for the lower chamber.
[edit] The leadership of Ettore Beggiato and the 2004 split
In 2003 Ettore Beggiato was elected national secretary, in a difficult moment for the party, almost completely out of the institutions and shrinking in opinion polls. In 2004 he tried to convince all the party members to join the recent-born North-East Project, even if the PNE leader Giorgio Panto wanted the LFV to join not as a party, but as a collection of single members.
Fabrizio Comencini refused the idea, that would have meant "the end to the party's autonomy". After a tumultuous congress, a group led by Ettore Beggiato, Mariangelo Foggiato, Michele Munaretto switched to the North-East Project, while Fabrizio Comencini was elected national secretary and Alessio Morosin national president.
[edit] The alliance with The Union
In 2005 the party supported the centre-left candidate to the presidency of the Veneto Region, Massimo Carraro (a former Communist), scoring the 1.2%, while the North-East Project took the 5.6% (and more than 15% in the Province of Treviso), electing Mariangelo Foggiato, alongside with Diego Cancian, to the Regional Council.
For the 2006 national elections Fabrizio Comencini forged an alliace with The Union of Romano Prodi, but voters seemed to not like the idea and the result was only 0.7%, in an election in which only the 40.2% voted for the centre-left, while the other regionalist parties, the Liga Veneta-Lega Nord and the North-East Project scored 11.1% and 2.7% respectively.
[edit] Leadership
- National Secretary: Fabrizio Comencini (1998-2000), Ettore Beggiato (2000-2001), Giorgio Vido (2001-03), Ettore Beggiato (2003-04), Fabrizio Comencini (2004-…)
- National President: Mariangelo Foggiato (1998-99), Donato Manfroi (1999-2000), Fabrizio Comencini (2000-2004), Alessio Morosin (2004-…)
