Liga Veneta (; English: Venetian League, LV), whose complete name is (), is a regionalist political party active in Veneto, currently led by Andrea Tomaello as federal commissioner.
The LV, whose ideology combines Venetian nationalism and support for fiscal federalism, was established in 1979 under the slogan "farther from Rome, closer to Europe", and was the first party of its kind in northern Italy, predating Umberto Bossi's Lega Lombarda by five years. The LV was one of the founding "national" sections of Lega Nord (LN) in 1991 and has been the regional section of Lega per Salvini Premier (LSP) in Veneto since 2020. Despite its long alignment with Lega Nord and Lega, the LV has its ideological peculiarities and is seen as more centrist.
In the 2010 regional election the LV was by far the largest party in Veneto with 35.2% of the vote and LV's Luca Zaia, who was supported also by The People of Freedom, was elected President of Veneto with 60.2%. In the 2015 regional election the LV, which fielded also a "Zaia list" improved its tally to 40.9% and Zaia, who counted also on the support of some minor parties, was re-elected with 50.1%. In the 2020 regional election the LV's two lists improved again their tally to 61.5% and Zaia was re-elected by a landslide 76.8% of the vote. In the 2025 regional election coalition agreements barred Zaia's list from running, but the LV came again first with 36.3% of the vote, while Alberto Stefani was elected to succeed Zaia with 64.4%.
Among leading members, Gian Paolo Gobbo was the party's longest-serving secretary, Zaia represents its liberal and more progressive wing, while Lorenzo Fontana, from the conservative wing, has been the President of Italy's Chamber of Deputies since 2022.
History Background and foundation The origins of Venetian identity and Venetian nationalism lie in the Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic, which lasted eleven centuries from 697 to 1797, being one of the first modern republics of the world. After Veneto's annexation by Italy in 1866 and especially right after World War I calls for Venetian autonomy came from both left and right of the political spectrum. Early Venetists included Guido Bergamo, a member of the Chamber of Deputies for the Italian Republican Party, and Italico Corradino Cappellotto, a member of the Chamber for the Italian People's Party who launched the first full-fledged Venetist party, Lion of Saint Mark, which obtained 6.1% of the vote in the province of Treviso in the 1921 general election.
Venetist ideas made a comeback in the 1960s, when the Venetian Regionalist Autonomous Movement (MARV) campaigned for the institution of the ordinary regions (including Veneto), prefigured by the Constitution of Italy.Ezio Toffano, Short History of the Venetian Autonomism , Raixe VeneteFrancesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, p. 35 The ordinary regions were finally instituted in 1970. Since then, Veneto experienced a dramatic economic boom due to a new production model based on small enterprises. The high burden of taxes and bureaucracy, associated with the increasing frustration with the inefficient and overstaffed Italian government in Rome, that continued to channel northern taxes as massive development aid to the corrupt and backward southern regions, was the key element, along with linguistic and historical claims, that led to the formation of Liga Veneta.
Liga Veneta was promoted in 1978 by Franco Rocchetta, a Venetian philologist and president of the Venetian Philological Society who had been talking of a "Venetian league" since 1968. The party constitution, modelled on those of the Valdostan Union and the Radical Party, was officially signed by 14 founding members on 16 January 1980 in PaduaFrancesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, pp. 36, 43Ezio Toffano, Short History of the Venetian Autonomism , Raixe Venete and Achille Tramarin was elected national secretary. In December 1979, during the party's first informal congress, named "farther from Rome, closer to Europe", the opening speech recited: "Today for Venetians the moment has come, after 113 years of Italian unitary colonisation, to take their natural and human resources back, to fight against the wild exploitation that has brought emigration, pollution, and rooting out from their culture". European integration through the European Union (EU) was seen as an opportunity to give back to Veneto its autonomy.Francesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, pp. 35, 41
Early years and splits (1980–1989) In the 1983 general election the LV gained 4.3% in Veneto: Tramarin was elected to the Chamber of Deputies and Graziano Girardi to the Senate. In the Pedemontana, the area of the Padanian-Venetian Plain at the feet of the Venetian Prealps, the LV became the second largest party after then-dominant Christian Democracy (DC). This party would be mostly damaged from the rise of the LV as both parties concurred for the support of the middle class. DC regional leader Antonio Bisaglia had proposed a regional party modelled on the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, but opposition from Rome and his sudden death stopped the plan.Francesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, pp. 46-47, 50-51 However, a few months later, a power struggle took place within the LV and the winner was Rocchetta, who had been behind the scenes up to that moment, but was disappointed for his missed election. Tramarin was replaced as national secretary by Marilena Marin, Rocchetta's future wife,Francesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, p. 55 and, expelled by Marin, would form the splinter Liga Veneta Serenissima (LVS) in 1984. In the 1984 European Parliament election the LV gained 3.3% in Veneto, not enough to win any seats.
In the 1985 regional election the party obtained 3.7% and two regional councillors: Ettore Beggiato and Rocchetta.Francesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, p. 57 Tramarin's LVS won a mere 0.2% of the vote and, since then, Rocchetta and Marin have had the party in their hands. That of the LVS was only one of several splits occurred over the decade. The first had been Giulio Pizzati's Liga Federativa Veneta in 1983,Francesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, p. 45 while another occurred in 1987: some hardliners, led by Luigi Faccia and Flavio Contin, left the party and launched the Venetian Most Serene Government, which would organise the St Mark's Campanile's "assault" in 1997 (see Venetian nationalism).Francesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, pp. 54, 105-111 However, the two most damaging splits were those of the Union of the Venetian People (UPV), formed by Beggiato (who was joined by Tramarin and Girardi) and that of the Veneto Autonomous Region Movement (MVRA). After the splits, the only counterweight to Rocchetta–Marin within the LV was thus represented by the Treviso wing, which then started to gain influence, under the leadership of Gian Paolo Gobbo and Mauro Michielon. In the next elections, the LV and the UPV had similar showings.Francesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, pp. 63-66
Foundation of Lega Nord (1989–1994) Rocchetta and Marin managed to forge an alliance with Umberto Bossi's Lega Lombarda (LL) for the 1989 European Parliament election, Lega Lombarda – Alleanza Nord, in which the LV won a mere 1.7% of the vote and no seats. In 1989–1990, ahead of the 1990 regional elections, the LV took part in the process of federating the northern regionalist parties, including the LL, Autonomist Piedmont, Ligurian Union, Emilia-Romagna League and Tuscan Alliance. In the 1990 regional election the LV and the UPV scored 5.9% and 1.9%, respectively. In the 1991 local elections, the UPV surpassed the LV. Some attempts to merge the two parties into one failed, but from that point, thanks to the alliance with Bossi, LV's rise would be unstoppable.Francesco Jori, Dalla Łiga alla Lega. Storia, movimenti, protagonisti, Marsilio, Venice 2009, p. 79
In February 1991, the LV finally was merged with the five parties of the LL–AN alliance and newly-formed parties in the northern autonomous regions and provinces (the future Lega Vallée d'Aoste, Lega Alto Adige Südtirol, Lega Trentino, Lega Friuli and Lega Trieste) into Lega Nord (LN). Since then, the LV has been the "national" section of the LN in Veneto. Bossi was elected federal secretary and Rocchetta federal president. Thanks to the federal structure of the LN and to its ideology (according to which Padania is a country formed of different nations: Veneto, Lombardy, Piedmont, etc.), the LV retained much of its autonomy, but occasionally tensions occurred with "the Lombards", causing splits.
In the 1992 general election, the LN scored 8.7% throughout Italy and the LV won 17.8% of the vote in Veneto and was second only to the DC, returning to the Chamber and the Senate after five years, this time with several elects. The UPV and the MVRA both won 1.5% of the vote, while Lega Autonomia Veneta (LAV), formed by the former Socialist mayor of Venice Mario Rigo, got 4.7% of the vote. The Venetist movement, divided as ever, however gained the support of about a quarter of Venetian voters.
Heyday and further splits (1994–1998) In the 1994 general election the LV won 21.6% of the vote in Veneto (the LAV took 3.2%) and three of its members joined the first Berlusconi government: Rocchetta was undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Mariella Mazzetto of Education and Giovanni Meo Zilio (a former Socialist partisan in the Italian resistance movement), of University and Research. Between 1994 and 1995 the LV was also part of the regional government for the first time, with Gian Paolo Gobbo as vice president.
In July 1994 Marin was replaced by Fabrizio Comencini as national secretary of the party, while Gobbo was elected national president. Shortly after, in September, Rocchetta and Marin left the party in disagreement with Bossi and the new Venetian leadership, founding "Liga Nathion Veneta" (LNV). Rocchetta was replaced by Stefano Stefani, a leading member of the LV, as federal president of Lega Nord in February 1995. The exit of Rocchetta and Marin made possible the comeback of Beggiato into the party. Thanks to this the LV did not suffer a major setback in the 1995 regional election: 17.4% and 9 regional councillors elected. In the meantime, the LNV quickly disappeared and Rocchetta briefly joined other parties.
In the 1996 general election Bossi led Lega Nord to its strongest showing in a general election: with 10.1% of the vote, the party, which fielded lists only in northern Italy, became the fourth largest of the country. Comencini's Liga Veneta was the strongest national section of the League: it gained 29.3% of the vote in Veneto, 19 deputies and 9 senators, mostly elected in single-seat constituencies, in which the party, favoured by split-ticket voting, gained a total 32.8% of the vote.
The party had become strong also in local politics. In 1994 the party had won the mayorship of Treviso with Giancarlo Gentilini, and one year later it gained control of three provinces: Padua with Renzo Sacco, Verona with Antonio Borghesi and Treviso with Giovanni Mazzonetto. In 1997 the party won also in the province of Vicenza with Manuela Dal Lago, while Luca Zaia was elected President of the Province of Treviso, replacing Mazzonetto, in 1998. Also in 1998, Gentilini was re-elected mayor of Treviso.