Act! (Italy)

In the run-up of the 2015 regional election, after a long struggle with Lega Nord federal secretary Matteo Salvini, Flavio Tosi was ejected from the party and, consequently, removed from his office of national secretary of Liga Veneta, the largest party in Veneto and one of the largest "national" sections of Lega Nord.[4][5] Consequently, Tosi decided to run for President of Veneto, in competition with incumbent President Luca Zaia (official candidate of the party).[6]

Tosi was joined by three deputies (Matteo Bragantini, Roberto Caon, Emanuele Prataviera), three senators (Patrizia Bisinella, Raffaela Bellot, Emanuela Munerato),[7] and nine regional councillors of Veneto (Luca Baggio, Matteo Toscani, Francesco Piccolo, Daniele Stival, Giuseppe Stoppato, Diego Bottacin, Maurizio Conte, Andrea Bassi, Leonardo Padrin, Mauro Mainardi, Renzo Marangon and Moreno Teso). The latter came not just from Liga Veneta, but also other parties.

In the regional election, whose results were a large victory of Zaia and a historical high for Liga Veneta, Tosi won 11.9% of the vote as candidate for President and two lists close to him, the Tosi List for Veneto and Il Veneto del Fare con Tosi, obtained a combined 7.1% and four regional councillors (Bassi, Conte, Stefano Casali and Giovanna Negro).

In July 2015 Tosi re-organised his followers into a full-fledged party, named Act! (Fare!). Immediately, Michele Boldrin, leader of Act to Stop the Decline, sued Act! as the names of the two parties looked too similar,[8] but nothing consequential happened.

In September a fourth deputy joined the party: Marco Marcolin, also from Liga Veneta–Lega Nord.[9] Marcolin would switch to Civic Choice (SC) in October 2016.[10][11][12]

In October Act! became an occasional supporter of the centre-left government led by Matteo Renzi, whom Tosi held in high esteem, fueling rumors that the party might either enter in stable alliance with or join Renzi's Democratic Party (PD).[13] However, during the party's national convention in February 2016, Tosi rejected any notion of a stable alliance with Renzi, while expressing his interest for an agreement with centre-right forces.[14] In fact, Act! maintained its independence from the government, while occasionally supporting it and favouring the "yes" vote in the 2016 constitutional referendum, differently from the entire centre-right. The vote resulted in a huge defeat for Renzi, who resigned from Prime Minister and was replaced by Democrat Paolo Gentiloni, at the head of an alike centre-left government.

Since April 2016 Act! had formed a sub-group within the Mixed Group of the Chamber of Deputies in alliance with the Italian Republican Party (PRI), a minor liberal party which had no deputies, but had run in the 2013 general election and, as such, could form a sub-group under its name.[15]

In November 2016 Casali launched his bid for mayor of Verona in 2017 without Tosi's support,[16] in the following months formed a separate group from that of the Tosi List for Verona in the Municipal Council, while continuing to lead the Tosi List for Veneto in the Regional Council,[17][18] and finally chose to support the joint centre-right candidate for mayor, Federico Sboarina.[19] Bisinella was instead chosen as the party's official candidate for mayor.[20][21]

Contextually, at the national level, Tosi was planning a new liberal party with Civic Choice (SC), the support of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi and the endorsement of Guy Verhofstadt (leader of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament),[22] in the context of a broad centrist front, composed also by Popular Alternative (AP), the Centrists for Europe (CpE) and the Liberal Popular Alliance (ALA).[23][24][25] In May the liberal and pro-EU "Free Italy" was launched during a convention.[26]

In May 2017 Casali and Bassi finally left Act! and formed a separate group from LTV's in the Regional Council, the Venetian Centre-Right.[27][28] In doing this, they were joined by a third councillor, Fabiano Barbisan of Liga Veneta (but elected with the Zaia List), for technical reasons.

In June 2017 Bisinella came second with 23.5% in the municipal election of Verona, but, despite the external support of the PD,[29] she was defeated by Sboarina 41.9% to 58.1% in the run-off.[30] The Tosi List won 16.5% (with Tosi obtaining 3,000 preference votes)[31] and Act! 2.7%. Outside Verona, Tosiani obtained negligible results.

After the defeat in Verona, Tosi started a rapproachment with the centre-right, especially with Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia (FI) party.[32][33][34] Despite this, the party suffered another centre-right split in Veneto, where Conte launched Veneto for Autonomy,[35][36][37] effectively disbanding the LTV. Along with Conte, the two most leading founding members of the new party were Baggio, a former regional councillor and national president of Liga Veneta, and Caon, a deputy. Subsequently, Caon left the party's sub-group and joined the group of FI, while the remaining two Act! deputies joined forces with AP splinter Enrico Costa, under the new name "Act!–PRI–Liberals".[38]

In December 2017 Act! was a founding member of Us with Italy (NcI), a pro-Berlusconi centrist list within the centre-right coalition for the 2018 general election, along with SC, splinters of AP (two groups, one led by Costa and the other by Maurizio Lupi), Direction Italy (DI), Popular Construction (CP) and the Movement for the Autonomies (MpA).[39][40][41] NcI was later enlarged to the Union of the Centre (UdC)[42][43][44] and Identity and Action (IdeA),[45][46] with the goal of reaching 3%, required to win seats from proportional lists under a new electoral law.