Castelli remembers Maroni: “Thirty years of battles together, our world is crumbling”

“I had the news five minutes ago. A bad thing, but bad, bad. He had gotten worse for a few months and we haven’t heard from each other because it didn’t seem right to disturb him. I knew she wasn’t well, but I didn’t expect such a sudden outcome. We have worked side by side for thirty years. The feeling I have is that of a world, our world, which is collapsing». Roberto Castelli, former Minister of Justice and historic face of the Northern League, answers the phone with a moved voice recalling his party mate and “thirty years of side-by-side battles” Roberto Maroni. «Bobo was Bossi’s right arm, a fundamental figure – he says. Their tactic was this: Umberto always sent him forward in the negotiations, in order to study his opponents and understand what was happening, but then he held the last card in his hand. The decisive one, at the last moment, to blow up the table. The best-known episode of this modus operandi was the famous “Turnaround” with which the League blew up the Berlusconi government in 1994».

Castelli dwells on the political episodes even on the most personal memories. «I’m still incredulous but the first images that come to mind are those of the pizza with the Senatur, a must in the glorious years when the Carroccio was under attack, in which Bobo and Umberto entertained us by narrating their heroic deeds. One of the great classics was the story of the spilled paint on Maroni’s mother’s car after a night spent writing Northern League slogans on the walls of the province of Varese – continues Castelli -. But if I think of Maroni I also think of 2013, when I decided to interrupt my political activity in Parliament. Bobo was federal secretary and he called me to ask where it would be best to run and I told him that I had decided to take a step back. We met in his office and I confessed to him that I was tired and wanted to retire.’

But the former Keeper of the Seals does not dwell only on the past. «In recent months I had seen with pleasure that he had resumed writing, even though I knew that it cost him a lot of effort and that he found it difficult to speak – he concludes. He had entered the debate on the present and future of the League, and on the issues of autonomy, always maintaining his line, always very independent, always very governmental ».