Umberto Bossi has died.
Founder of the Lombard League, which later became the Northern League, known to all as the Senator since he arrived at Palazzo Madama in 1987, he was 84 years old. According to reports, he was admitted to the intensive care unit of the Circolo hospital in Varese yesterday. His condition was already very critical, and the situation worsened late this evening.
"The entire League community is deeply shocked and saddened by the passing of founder Umberto Bossi and extends its heartfelt condolences to his family. All events scheduled for tomorrow are canceled," a statement from the League said, adding that Secretary Matteo Salvini will return to Milan on the first flight. Late in the evening, his heir delivered a farewell: " Courage, genius, passion, hard work, love, revolution, roots, freedom. I was 17 when I met you, and you changed my life. Today I am 53, and I bid you farewell, on Father's Day, with a tear, but with the same gratitude, the same pride, and the determination to never give up, as you taught us. Your immense people pay homage to you and will continue to walk the path you have paved: that of Freedom. Farewell, Chief. To God."
From Palazzo Chigi, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni remembered: "Umberto Bossi, with his political passion, marked an important phase in Italian history and made a fundamental contribution to the formation of the first center-right. In this moment of great sorrow, I am close to his family and his political community." Italy—this is the message from President Sergio Mattarella— has lost a passionate political leader and a sincere democrat. The President of the Republic expresses his closeness to his family and to all those who shared his commitment in his party." "It is not the North that should thank Umberto Bossi, but the entire country," said Luca Zaia, President of the Veneto Regional Council, who served as a minister with Bossi in the fourth Berlusconi government. "Without his contribution of vision, realism, and political ability, the history of the Republic would have been very different, deprived of a great interpreter of the need to respond to the needs of the citizens of the northern regions and, with them, solutions for all of Italian society."
The defense of Padania
A champion of the "defense of Padania" against "thieving Rome," his "hardline" attitude has become a byword in the dictionaries, defining a brutally radical and intransigent, at times even vulgar, attitude he carried into government, the European Parliament, and the Chamber of Deputies, where he rarely appeared after his serious illness in 2004. An "Attila of politics," Gianfranco Fini called him, whose name is associated with Bossi's in the controversial law on illegal immigration. Even more so, his history is intertwined with that of Berlusconi, rival and ally, then finally a great friend. With Berlusconi at Palazzo Chigi, the Senator served twice as minister, for Institutional Reforms and Devolution in 2001-2004, and for Federalism Reforms in 2008-2011.
When he emerged on the national scene, secession was the primary objective of the Cassano Magnago leader. After a youth as a "Gluck Street boy," shelving his plan to graduate in medicine and a musical experience under the name "Donato" at the Castrocaro Festival, he placed himself at the forefront of spreading the autonomist and federalist ideas of Bruno Salvadori, leader of the Unione Valdôtaine. The turning point came within a decade. Bossi founded and led the Lega Lombarda: at its first congress in 1989, before 400 people, he launched a scathing attack on immigrants of color, homosexuals, and southerners. Years later, he would also call Giorgio Napolitano a "terùn" (a southerner): he served a year and 15 days in prison for vilifying the President of the Republic, a sentence pardoned by Sergio Mattarella in 2019. But those were the tones of the ritual of the ampoule on the Po, of the massive rallies in Pontida. Having merged various regionalist movements into the Northern League, Bossi, as secretary, was in the spotlight as the Tangentopoli scandal erupted. Far from the economic and cultural hubs, the League was taking votes away from established parties. Initially, the secretary sided with the Milan constituency; on March 16, 1993, one of its deputies, Luca Leoni Orsenigo, appeared in the Northern League chamber with a noose. A year later, however, even Bossi had to admit to illicit financing of 200 million lire from Montedison to the League.
"A dragon with a smile"
It's rare to see him without a cigar. "A dragon with smoking nostrils and a smile on his face," Giuliano Ferrara describes him. He says he draws inspiration from Don Luigi Sturzo and Konrad Adenauer. But with his white vest, the jeers, the raspberries, the raised middle finger, the cavernous voice, Bossi boasts of a "shock diplomacy". In 1991 he shouted his most successful slogan at a congress: "The League has it tough". Two years later in Pontida he threatened a "tax strike" to demand early elections (a tactic used several times). The vote goes to the polls, the League becomes the deciding factor: this is Bossi's goal, which makes Berlusconi's alliance sweat, putting federalism and antitrust law on the table. He breaks with Gianfranco Miglio, the League's ideologue, but obtains Irene Pivetti as president of the Chamber and 5 ministers. After nine months, however, the Senator makes a reversal and supports Umberto Dini's technical government. With Berlusconi there are alternating arguments and peacemaking, even when the League (after having run alone in 1996) enters the House of Freedoms in 1997. 2001 and he becomes minister again. "The coming year is the year in which we either implement federalism or die," he shouts from Pontida in the hot summer of 2002. It will take three years, but the federalist reform of the constitution is ultimately rejected by referendum. Meanwhile, in 2004, he suffers a stroke, his heart already at risk following an ischemic heart attack in 1991, a sudden illness in 1996, and some ailments in 2001.
The "plot" and the resignation
He resigned as minister, opting for a seat in the European Parliament (under his leadership, the League in Strasbourg had always been in the ALDE group, the Liberal Democrats, while now it is in the sovereignist group of Identity and Democracy), before returning to Berlusconi's government in 2008. Victim of "a conspiracy" by "the scoundrel Rome that gave us this kind of magistrates," Bossi resigned as League secretary on April 5, 2012, causing uproar within his party. Meanwhile, the name Bossi disappeared from the symbol, replaced by "Padania," at the feet of Alberto da Giussano. The Senator remained federal president of a party taken over and then sidelined by Matteo Salvini, who created the "League for Salvini Premier." Nostalgics instead formed the Northern Committee. Relations between founder and successor were never particularly close. In the last elections, Bossi's candidacy hung in the balance until the very end, and only a recount prevented his re-election after 35 years.
(Unioneonline/D)