Republican Left of the Valencian Country (, ERPV) is a Valencian left nationalist and republican party. The original ERPV was founded in 1933, then disbanded in 1935. In 2000 the vacant ERPV name was taken by the party resulting from the merge of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya's (ERC) Valencian section and the Front pel País Valencià (Front for the Valencian Country). ERPV is currently the main explicit sponsor of the Catalan Countries independence in the Valencian Country, where poor electoral results so far limit its participation to a marginal role. History Foundation and disbandment The party was founded during the Spanish Second Republic and became established under the leadership of Gaietà Huguet, in Castellón. In 1935, he impelled a merging with the party Esquerra Valenciana (Valencian Left, EV), founded in 1934 and led by Vicent Marco Miranda (ex-Mayor of Valencia), Josep Benedito, Miquel Duran de València and Manuel Sanchís-Guarner. After Vicent Marco obtained in 1936 the act of deputy in Valencia within the candidatures of the Popular Front both parties joint in a common parliamentary group in the Spanish Congress with the name of Catalan Left. In 1935, ERPV disbanded and merged as a fraction in EV. The Spanish Civil War truncated many political projects in which Esquerra Valenciana participated, the most important of which was a project of a Valencian statute of autonomy with the official name of País Valencià (rendered in English by some as "Valencian Country", see names of the Valencian Community), which would have granted similar autonomous powers as with the other so-called historical nationalities in Spain (namely, Andalusia, Basque country, Catalonia and Galicia). In spite of it, Esquerra Valenciana, the main party in which ERPV had diluted, reached their maximum growth in that period, arriving to exceed 10,000 affiliated. Under the regime of Francisco Franco, Esquerra Valenciana (the party which ERPV had merged with in 1935) was suppressed. Then, after Franco's death, the Spanish Transition and the advent of democracy in Spain, ERPV was not revived. Refoundation In 2000, a group of members of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) in Valencia, decided to revive the ERPV vacant acronym and, led by Agustí Cerdà, claimed to have refounded the party as the Valencian branch of ERC. Electoral results Then, 2003 saw ERPV's comeback to democratic elections in the Valencian Community, after more than 60 years of its last electoral contest. The party participated in elections to