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Venetian National Party Partito Nasionał Veneto | |
|---|---|
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| Founded | May 2007 |
| Dissolved | 12 September 2011 |
| Merged into | Veneto State |
| Ideology | Venetism Separatism Libertarianism Liberalism |
| Website | |
| http://www.pnveneto.org/ | |
TheVenetian National Party (Partito Nasionał Veneto, PNV) was aVenetist,separatist andlibertarianpolitical party active inVeneto,Lombardy andFriuli-Venezia Giulia. In September 2010 the party suspended its activities and its members joinedVeneto State. In May 2012 most of its former leaders seceded from it and formedVenetian Independence.
The party was founded in 2007 byGianluca Busato (who had been a founding member of theVenetians Movement in 2006),Claudio Ghiotto (also known asClaudio Hütte) andAlessia Bellon. The PNV was indeed a split of the Venetians Movement, whose leaderPatrik Riondato did not want to actively participate to elective politics,[1] but soon drew people from libertarian circles.
At the first party congress, which was held on 18 May 2008 inCastelfranco Veneto, Busato was elected secretary, whereasPaolo Bernardini was elected president.[2]
In 2009 the PNV took part for the first time in an election, by presenting candidates and lists for the provincial elections inPadua andVenice,
According to party officials, during the campaign, members and supporters experienced several interferences from the localCarabinieri.Gianluca Busato was interrogated at a Carabinieri's station ofLimena (PD).[3] On 13 MayStefano Venturato, candidate for president in Padua, started ahunger strike to protest against the misinformation of the local newspapers about the PNV and the interferences of the Italian police.[4] Finally, on 14 May, the PNV's headquarters inTreviso were ransacked by Carabinieri.[5]
The week before the election was also marked by tragedy. One of the party's candidates, Angela Cristina Oliveira da Silva, was killed in the explosion ofAir France's flight fromRio de Janeiro toParis.[6] She was returning from her nativeBrazil to participate in the last week of campaigning.
Election results were highly disappointing as the PNV gained just 0.3% of the vote in Padua and 0.2% in Venice, but it did better in some municipal contests.[7]
At a congress in October 2009, inLimena, which was attended by several Venetist leaders, such asPatrik Riondato ofVenetians Movement andEttore Beggiato ofNorth-East Project, the PNV chose to run theforthcoming regional election with an independentist candidate.Gianluca Busato was re-elected secretary, whileLodovico Pizzati (son ofGiulio, leader ofLiga Federativa Veneta in the 1980s) was elected president.Paolo Bernardini was appointed honorary president.[8]
The party decided to choose its candidate for President of Veneto through an on-lineopen primary. Five candidates ran:Claudio Ghiotto (representing thelibertarian wing of the party),[9]Sabrina Tessari,Stefano Ventuarato,Alberto Gardin (leader ofVenetian Independence and, later, candidate of theParty of the Venetians) andMichele Milanetto (a former member of theDemocrats of the Left, on behalf of the party's left-wing).[10] Soon Milanetto withdrew in favour of Tessari,[11] while Venturato did the same to endorse Ghiotto, who was thus the front-runner.[12] More than 10,000 people voted in the primary and Ghiotto won the nomination with 54.8% of the vote, ahead of Tessari (45.0%) and Gardin (0.2%).[13] Shortly afterwards Ghiotto chose not to run and opened the way for the bid of his running-mate,Gianluca Panto, in accordance with party rules.[14]
On election day, Panto managed to win a mere 0.4% of the vote, while the party was stuck at 0.3%.[15] It was a big blow for the PNV, but its members saw it as the first step toward success.[16] Busato resigned from secretary,[17] and was replaced by Panto at a party congress in May.[18]
On 12 September 2010 the PNV was merged with theParty of the Venetians (PdV) to formVeneto State (VS).Lodovico Pizzati, president of the PNV, was elected secretary of the new party.Gianluca Busato (PNV) was elected treasurer andGiustino Cherubin (PdV) president.[19]
With the merger of the PNV into the new party, the website of the PNV was transformed into "Press News Veneto" (PNV), an online newspaper edited by Busato, covering Venetian, European, international, economic, cultural, political and, especially, separatist issues.[20] The PNV magazine is quite independent from VS, as exposed also by the brief exit of Busato from the party in January 2011,[21] and the critical views of the new party leadership elected in October 2011.[22] Since then, the website became also the voice of the libertarian wing of the party, represented also by Pizzati, who had been replaced as secretary byAntonio Guadagnini.
In May 2012, after almost a year of clashes with the new leadership, most former PNV members left VS and formedVenetian Independence (IV).[23]
The party campaigned forindependence for the so-calledVenetia, a country that would be composed of all the territories of the historicalVenetian Republic, covering the currentVeneto,Friuli-Venezia Giulia, some provinces ofLombardy (Brescia,Bergamo,Cremona andMantova) and a portion ofTrentino (seechart), in contrast with those Venetist parties, such asLiga Veneta–Lega Nord, currently campaigning for federal reform.
The core principles of the PNV included:individual rights, including theright to life,private property and thepursuit of happiness (a clear reference to theUnited States Declaration of Independence); the refusal of any discrimination based on race, sex, religion, language, etc.;nonviolence,democratic legitimacy and non aggression; respect ofinternational law, theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights and, mainly,self-determination. The party proposed an independent Veneto, "tolerant and open to Europe" and takes example from theScottish National Party, theBasque National Party, andCatalan nationalists.[24][25]
The PNV early leader Bernardini was essentially a libertarian[citation needed] and most of party members, notably includingGianluca Panto,Claudio Ghiotto andLodovico Pizzati, reflected his economic and political ideas.[citation needed] The party's core was indeed represented by theVenetian Libertarian Party envisioned and led by Ghiotto.[26] However the party was open to people of all backgrounds.[citation needed]
The party proposed aflat tax at 20%, to be reduced over a few years to 15%, something that would be possible only in case of independence.[27]
