Gianluca Busato

Gianluca Busato (born Treviso, 14 May 1969) is an Italian entrepreneur, engineer, activist and politician^[1][2][3] who is mostly known as the main organiser of the unofficial and online Venetian independence referendum, which took place in March 2014.

As a university student of Engineering at the University of Padua, Busato joined Liga Veneta–Lega Nord and was elected municipal councillor in Casier. Having been expelled from that party, he was one of the founding members of the Padanian Independentist Movement in 1997 and was its spokesperson for two years.^[1][4][5] In this capacity, he was convicted for having been an outspoken supporter of Padania and of the Venetian Most Serene Government's seizure of St. Mark's Campanile in Venice.^[6][7] This last event led Busato to abandon his early Padanist feelings and to adhere convincingly to the Venetian independence movement.

According to his own words, Busato returned to active politics only after the depenalisation of "crimes of opinion".^[2] In 2006 he wrote a pamphlet on independence and was a founding member of the Venetians Movement^[8][9] and, a year later, he launched the libertarian and avowedly separatist Venetian National Party (PNV), and served as its national secretary from 2008 to 2010.^[10] He was later active, often taking leadership roles, in a succession of separatist outfits, all emerged from bulk of the PNV: Veneto State (2010–2012), Venetian Independence (2012–2013), Plebiscite 2013 (2013–2014) and, finally, Veneto Yes (since 2013).^[8]

In 2014 Busato came to regional prominence as the main organiser of Plebiscito.eu, an online referendum on Veneto's independence. According to the staff, 2.36 million Venetians (63.2% of all eligible voters) participated in the online referendum and 89.1% of them (that is to say 56.6% of all eligible voters) voted yes.^[11][12] This was enough for Busato and his followers to proclaim Veneto's independence from Italy in Treviso on the night of 21 March.^{[13][14][15][16]} In the poll, ten "delegates for independence" were elected too: Busato was the most voted candidate with 135,306 preference votes.^[11][12]

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