Early Years
In September 1998, after some clashes with Umberto Bossi, Fabrizio Comencini, national secretary of Liga Veneta since 1994, tried to lead the party out of the Lega Nord federation. This move was opposed by Bossi's loyalists and he was finally expelled from the party and replaced by Gian Paolo Gobbo as leader of Liga Veneta.
Subsequently seven out of eight members of the Liga Veneta–Lega Nord's group in the Regional Council of Veneto (Fabrizio Comencini, Ettore Beggiato, Alessio Morosin, Mariangelo Foggiato, Alberto Poirè, Michele Munaretto and Franco Roccon) left the party and launched Liga Veneta Repubblica (LVR), which was initially intended to be the legal continuation and legitimate heir of Liga Veneta. Another councillor, Adriano Bertaso of North-East Union, who had earlier left Lega Nord, joined the party for a while.
Comencini's followers represented the more Venetist and independentist wing of Liga Veneta, while the people who remained in Lega Nord were mainly fiscal federalists and Padanists. The former were also keen on an alliance with the centre-right Pole of Freedoms in Veneto in support of President Giancarlo Galan.
Although at the beginning many people thought that it was the end of Lega Nord in Veneto, as soon as in June 1999 it was clear that most voters of Liga Veneta had remained loyal to Gobbo and Bossi. In the 1999 European Parliament election LVR won 3.5% of the vote in Veneto: a good result for a new party, but far less than Liga Veneta and far less than expected.
For the 2000 regional election Liga Veneta made an alliance with the Pole of Freedoms that excluded LVR. The party, whose name was changed to Veneti d'Europa, won 2.4% (0.6% under the threshold needed), due to the presence of another Venetist party, Fronte Marco Polo (1.2%), and an electoral recovery of the Liga Veneta (12.0%). The name Veneti d'Europa (Venetians for Europe) was chosen as LVR merged with Future Veneto, member of the Autonomists for Europe, a federation of splinter groups from Lega Nord.
Read more about this topic: Liga Veneta Repubblica, History
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