page_title: Nichi Vendola
section_title: Member of Parliament
hierarchical_section_title: Nichi Vendola / Political career / Member of Parliament
caption_attribution_description: Imma Battaglia, Marco Cappato, Daniele Capezzone and Nichi Vendola at the 2002 Padua Gay Pride.
context_page_description: Nicola "Nichi" Vendola is an Italian left-wing politician and LGBT activist who was a Member of the Chamber of Deputies from Apulia from 1992 to 2005 and President of Apulia from 2005 to 2015. He is one of the first openly LGBT Italian politicians and the first openly LGBT heads of a regional government in Italy.
context_section_description: In 1992, Vendola was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, to a seat which he held until 2005. As a member of the Antimafia Commission, he came to prominence as a strong opponent of the Mafia and organised crime.
  In 2005, Vendola ran for the first primary election ever held in Italy, held by the centre-left coalition The Union to choose their candidate for the presidency of the Apulia region. He won the primary over the rival Francesco Boccia. Many moderates in the alliance criticised the choice, since it appeared impossible that a communist homosexual could be elected president of a southern Italian region such as Apulia, generally considered to be conservative and strongly Catholic. Vendola identifies as a "believer" (in the line of Pax Christi): he once said that "the most important book for a communist like me is the Bible".
caption: Nichi Vendola participates at the Padua Pride 2002 with Imma Battaglia and Marco Cappato
exif: {}