from the South Tyrolean People's Party, but his "Forza Veneto" remained just an idea. The LV, whose leader in the 1980s and early 1990s was Franco Rocchetta, made its main electoral debut in the 1983 general election, when it garnered 4.3% in Veneto, resulting in two elects to the Italian Parliament. The party suffered many splits in its first decade of life and became a large political force only after its federation with other regional leagues, notably including Umberto Bossi's Lega Lombarda, which resulted in Lega Nord (LN) in 1991: in the 1996 general election, the party was Veneto's largest with 29.3%. However, clashes between Bossi and hardcore Venetists led to several splits; in 1994, Rocchetta left in protest, but more damaging was the 1998 split led by Fabrizio Comencini and Alessio Morosin, who launched Liga Veneta Repubblica (LVR). As a result, in the 2001 general election, the LV garnered a mere 10.2% of the vote, its worst score since 1987, while the LVR gained 4.9%. As the latter faded, the LV returned to gain ground in the 2005 regional election, despite the meteoric success of North-East Project (PNE). More recently, a string of separatist parties, notably including Venetian Independence (IV), emerged. Both in 1992 and 2000 the Italian Constitutional Court rejected proposals for an autonomy referendum, brought forward by the Regional Council of Veneto. In the 2010 regional election the LV, in steady rise since 2001, was by far the largest party in the region with 35.2% of the vote, while its leader Luca Zaia was elected President of Veneto by a landslide 60.2%. The combined result of Venetist parties was 37.6%, the highest so far. In the 2015 regional election, the LV set another record by winning 40.9% of the vote (combined result of party list, 17.8%, and Zaia's personal list, 23.1%) and Zaia was re-elected President of Veneto with 50.1% of the vote and a more coherently Venetist coalition. Separatist parties (Venetian Independence, Independence We Veneto and Veneto Confederal State) obtained 5.4% of the vote, while other regionalist and/or Venetist parties (Tosi List for Veneto, LTV's sponsored Il Veneto del Fare list, North-East Union, and Autonomous Veneto Project) another 8.0% of the vote. Consequently, a majority of regional councillors adhered, at least to some extent, to Venetism. In the 2020 regional election, the LV set one more record by winning 61.5% of the vote (combined result of