Lega Nord Friuli Venezia Giulia

History

The party was founded in 1990 as Lega Friuli by leading members of the Friuli Movement, including Roberto Visentin, Pietro Fontanini, Rinaldo Bosco, Sergio Cecotti and Alessandra Guerra. After that the Friuli Movement decided not join Lega Nord, they formed Lega Friuli in order to join. Visentin was the longstanding leader of the party until 1999.

In the 1990s the LNF controlled the posts of President or Vice President of the Region (1993–2003), President of the Province of Pordenone (1995–1999), President of the Province of Udine (1995–1999), Mayor of Pordenone (1993–2001) and Mayor of Udine (1998–2003). The party was the region's largest at the 1993 regional election (26.7%) and the 1996 general election (23.2%).

In 2001 Lega Nord Friuli was merged with Lega Nord Trieste to form a united regional section. At the time the party suffered many splits and a strong decline in term of votes, especially if compared to neighbouring Liga Veneta.

In the 2003 regional election Guerra was candidate for President of the House of Freedoms coalition. She was defeated by Riccardo Illy and the party gained only 9.3% of the vote. Between 2001 and 2007 Visentin, Bosco, Cecotti, Fontanini, Guerra, Giuseppe Zoppolato (secretary from 2000 to 2003) and Marco Pottino (secretary from 2005 to 2007) left or were ejected in party struggles. Guerra joined the Democratic Party in 2009.

In 2007 Fontanini, who had been ejected by Pottino, was re-integrated in the party after the ejection of the former. In 2008 Fontanini was elected President of the Province of Udine and secretary of LNFVG. This represented a sort of return to normality for the party, which won 13.0% of the vote in the general election. At the 2009 European Parliament election the party won 17.5% of the vote, its best score in more than a decade. Moreover, from 2008 to 2013 the party was part of the regional government led by Renzo Tondo of The People of Freedom.

In 2012 Fontanini, who had never been able to lead a party divided in too many factions (notably including those led respectively by Claudio Violino and Enzo Bortolotti), stepped down from secretary. Matteo Piasente was elected in his place with the support of 207 delegates out of 352 during a party congress. Fontanini, who grudgingly favoured Piasente, did not even take part to the congress.

In a regional election in April 2013 LNFVG obtained a mere 8.3% of the vote and just three regional councillors, due to Tondo's defeat. Soon after an expenses scandal, involving the former and current floor leaders in the Regional Council Danilo Narduzzi and Mara Piccin, emerged and the party looked increasingly divided among supporters of Piasente, including Violino and Narduzzi (who promptly resigned from deputy secretary), Massimiliano Fedriga and Fontanini, who asked Piasente to resign. The secretary's year-long reign ended in late June with his replacement with federal commissioner Gianpaolo Dozzo, who strove to maintain party unity.

In 2014, at a congress in Udine, Fedriga was uninamously elected national secretary, the first hailing from the Venetian-speaking Trieste in party's history.

Popular support

Lega Nord's best days in Friuli-Venezia Giulia were in the 1990s, when the party had its best results. The party has never fully recovered. Its strongholds however are still in Friuli, the western part of the region: in the 2009 European Parliament election it won 24.3% in the Province of Pordenone and 19.0% in Udine.

The electoral results of Lega Nord in the region are shown in the table below.

Leadership