Background and foundation The party was founded in 2007 by
Gianluca Busato (who had been a founding member of the
Venetians Movement in 2006),
Claudio Ghiotto (also known as
Claudio Hütte) and
Alessia Bellon. The PNV was indeed a split of the Venetians Movement, whose leader
Patrik Riondato did not want to actively participate to elective politics, but soon drew people from libertarian circles. At the first party congress, which was held on 18 May 2008 in
Castelfranco Veneto, Busato was elected secretary, whereas
Paolo Bernardini was elected president.
2009 provincial elections In 2009 the PNV took part for the first time in an election, by presenting candidates and lists for the provincial elections in
Padua and
Venice, According to party officials, during the campaign, members and supporters experienced several interferences from the local
Carabinieri.
Gianluca Busato was interrogated at a Carabinieri's station of
Limena (
PD). On 13 May
Stefano Venturato, candidate for president in Padua, started a
hunger strike to protest against the misinformation of the local newspapers about the PNV and the interferences of the Italian police. Finally, on 14 May, the PNV's headquarters in
Treviso were ransacked by Carabinieri. 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 of
Air France's flight from
Rio de Janeiro to
Paris. She was returning from her native
Brazil 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.
2010 regional election At a congress in October 2009, in
Limena, which was attended by several Venetist leaders, such as
Patrik Riondato of
Venetians Movement and
Ettore Beggiato of
North-East Project, the PNV chose to run the
forthcoming regional election with an independentist candidate.
Gianluca Busato was re-elected secretary, while
Lodovico Pizzati (son of
Giulio, leader of
Liga Federativa Veneta in the 1980s) was elected president.
Paolo Bernardini was appointed honorary president. The party decided to choose its candidate for President of Veneto through an on-line
open primary. Five candidates ran:
Claudio Ghiotto (representing the
libertarian wing of the party),
Sabrina Tessari,
Stefano Ventuarato,
Alberto Gardin (leader of
Venetian Independence and, later, candidate of the
Party of the Venetians) and
Michele Milanetto (a former member of the
Democrats of the Left, on behalf of the party's left-wing). Soon Milanetto withdrew in favour of Tessari, while Venturato did the same to endorse Ghiotto, who was thus the front-runner. 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%). 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. On election day, Panto managed to win a mere 0.4% of the vote, while the party was stuck at 0.3%. It was a big blow for the PNV, but its members saw it as the first step toward success. Busato resigned from secretary, and was replaced by Panto at a party congress in May.
Veneto State On 12 September 2010 the PNV was merged with the
Party of the Venetians (PdV) to form
Veneto State (VS).
Lodovico Pizzati, president of the PNV, was elected secretary of the new party.
Gianluca Busato (PNV) was elected treasurer and
Giustino Cherubin (PdV) president. 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. The PNV magazine is quite independent from VS, as exposed also by the brief exit of Busato from the party in January 2011, and the critical views of the new party leadership elected in October 2011. 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 by
Antonio Guadagnini. In May 2012, after almost a year of clashes with the new leadership, most former PNV members left VS and formed
Venetian Independence (IV). ==Ideology and factions==