It's not just Crimea: the Italian region of Veneto, which includes the city of Venice, is holding a referendum to secede too.
Local activists and parties have launched an online referendum to secede from Italy and declare an independent Republic of Veneto. Venice was at one time an independent republic, for about 1,100 years, before Napoleon deposed its last leader in 1797. And now, a local movement called Plebiscito.eu would like to reverse the clock and again cut ties with the Italian government.
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A significant portion of the population in Veneto and the northern regions in Italy have long been disgruntled with the way the central government treats the richer North, arguing they pay too many taxes and that these funds end up going to the poorer South. This referendum is the latest expression of that dissatisfaction, with mainly political and economical reasons behind it.
"We no longer want to be part of a country that has gone to the wall. Nothing works anymore," Nicola Gardin, the coordinator of the Indipendenza Veneta party, which is pushing for the initiative, told the Agence France Press. "Italy is weighed down by an enormous level of public debt, thousands of businesses have closed, we have lost count of the number of people who have committed suicide in Veneto."
Despite its lofty ambitions, the referendum won't be legally binding, as it's not recognized by either the national government in Rome or the local regional government. The main goal of the unofficial referendum is to rally popular support for a bill calling for a legally binding referendum, according to the AFP.
Some in Venice and the surrounding region, however, appear to be taking the online vote seriously.
The organizers said that after the first day, almost 500,000 people voted online, using a personal code organizers mailed to residents of the region. That would be almost 12% of the people with a right to vote in Veneto, according to organizers.
Voting opened on Sunday and will continue until Friday evening. The organizers say that according to the most recent polls, a majority of people would favor independence. If the referendum is successful, the organizers believe they have the right to go ahead and effectively secede.
"If there is a majority yes vote, we have scholars drawing up a declaration of independence and there are businesses in the region who say they will begin paying taxes to local authorities instead of to Rome," Lodovico Pizzati, the spokesman for the independence movement, told The Telegraph.
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