Avalanche League. Salvini expels three Northern League supporters but Bossi challenges him: “Cancel the expulsions”

If he still empties it, he can even rent it: “Lega per Salvini premier, it is located”. In Lombardy he lost four regional councilors in one month. Three came out yesterday. They were expelled. Umberto Bossi: “I will ask Salvini to cancel the expulsions”. In Gratosoglio, in Milan, two days ago, when journalists asked him what he thought of the fleeing Northern League, Salvini replied: “Only fantasies that interest journalists”. In fact, Salvini only reads the latest novel by Claudio Borghi, his Asimov, the science fiction writer of the Carroccio, “Lega al 20 percent. Back to the past” (Salvinelphi Publisher). The regional councilors who have decided to leave the Lega group are Antonello Formenti, Federico Lena, Roberto Mura. They were preceded by Gianmarco Senna, the most voted Northern League supporter in Milan. Formenti, Lena, Mura join the Northern Committee, the current of the founder of the League. Both they and the Committee have no intention, as guaranteed, to support Letizia Moratti. They did not come out against the positions of their president Attilio Fontana. They came out because they don’t recognize themselves in Salvini’s League.

They were immediately kicked out by a guarantee committee which is made up of Calderoli, Giorgetti, Bosatra, Centemero. They are the wise men of the party. The communication came from the coordinator of the Lombard League, Fabrizio Cecchetti, the same one who would have promised the regional councilors the re-nomination. But what is the use of a re-nomination in a party that is now slipping to six percent? Cecchetti spoke of “betrayal” and added that “correctness” would be appropriate. Said by this secretary, who in Lombardy has managed to antagonize an entire community, is singular. The base would have asked to replace him with a figure like the former minister Garavaglia. But does Salvini know what the base wants? The three escapees in the evening went to Umberto Bossi, a founder who, in a wheelchair, hospitalized, has been waiting to be received by Salvini for weeks.

For weeks Bossi has had to beg for an appointment with a secretary who uses absentia as a working method: he disappears. If Salvini has not yet had the strength to outlaw this Committee (“we are the green cross of the League. This malaise has those responsible. It is a trickle”) it is only because behind Paolo Grimoldi and Angelo Ciocca, the coordinators, there is Bossi. He asks for unity. In practice, and it has not yet been written, almost all the regional councilors of the League are part of the Committee. Eight others are part of it, in addition to the three expelled ones. In silence, those who remained must accept the decisions of a politburo which, among other things, allowed itself to be taken over by Forza Italia. It seems far-fetched but it is true.

In addition to Sardone who has grown politically in FI (MEP, commissioner of the League of Milan; one of her loyalists is the group leader of the council of the metropolitan city, Samuele Piscina) in the next regional elections, Alan Rizzi, councilor for the House, former Forza Italia will be candidate by the League . He will be nominated as leader in the Milan constituency. The only Northern League who has the votes, but a thought of him, Fabio Rolfi, would be about to be a candidate for mayor of Brescia. In the League the adage of an old director, a great journalist, is valid. “Do you have a good idea? An advice. Keep it”. When this party is emptied, Salvini would be able to say: “After all, it was too big for us”.

• Carmelo Caruso

• Carmelo Caruso, journalist in Palermo, Milan, Rome. He started at La Repubblica. Today he works at the Foglio