Nichi Vendola

Nicola "Nichi" Vendola (; born 26 August 1958) 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. Early life Born in Terlizzi, in the province of Bari, on 26 August 1958, Vendola was a member of the Italian Communist Youth Federation from the age of fourteen. He went on to study literature at his university, presenting a dissertation on the poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Vendola became a journalist for l'Unità. He came out as gay in 1978, and became an activist and a leading member of the Italian gay organisation Arcigay. A member of the National Secretariat of the Italian Communist Party, he fiercely opposed the dissolution of the party proposed by Achille Occhetto in 1991. This led to the formation of the Democratic Party of the Left. Vendola instead joined the Communist Refoundation Party. Political career