Death of Bossi, when the showdown arrived in the Northern League: betrayals, choices, and Salvini's new era

The internal challenges within the Northern League have never been simple, only two have beaten the chief: first, what was "a brotherly friend," Roberto Maroni, then Matteo Salvini, the disciple "who betrays the North." "The people shouted secession, not succession," smiled Umberto Bossi when in the summer of 2011 the debate over his heir was raging and at Pontida the crowd was (almost) only cheering for him. During that time, however, it was clear that the party was no longer monolithic.

A few years earlier, the idea of a family handover had already been dismissed. Far from being a dolphin, the son Renzo was labeled by his father as a "trout," a nickname he never escaped. The politician closest to Bossi has always been Maroni, 14 years younger, already by his side when in the late '70s he began the autonomy challenge from Varese. And when the Belsito case weakened the Senatùr, the handover was almost inevitable, dramatically marked by the famous "evening of the brooms" in Bergamo in 2012. A complex transition, with some forbidden blows, such as the directive - which would have been suggested by Bossi to the League secretariats - not to allow Maroni to participate in the party's public meetings.

In April, peace unfolds in front of the green risotto of Besozzo, but within a month the 'capò returns to the charge, unexpectedly running for office, only to have to surrender on July 1, at the Assago Forum, to the congress vote, which elects Maroni as secretary. "It was necessary to prevent the League from destroying itself. Some did not understand this, but that is what I did... And so the child is his," the emotional biblical quote from Bossi, who, however, in the following months was not particularly accommodating.

By the end of May 2013, the clash is fierce. The 'capò wants to take back the League, "because they destroyed it for me." The secretary warns: "Those who do not agree can leave, the world is big." Dissent spreads from Veneto. Maroni launches the first "primaries" in Padanian style to legitimize his successor directly from the League base and not from the congress delegates. This time, the challenge to Bossi comes from the young Lombard secretary Matteo Salvini.

The master does not have a high opinion of the disciple. "The quality that the secretary must have is to keep the League together. Anyone who causes chaos is not good," says Bossi about the 40-year-old MEP who, after two decades in the city council and a few months at the helm of the party in the mother region, has just coined the slogan "enough euro" (comparing the single currency to the "Nazi panzers") and imagines allying in Europe with the right-wing parties of Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, and Fpoe. "He understands nothing; if we want to exit the euro, they will shoot us," yells the founder into the microphones of Radio Padania, who prefers Scottish and Catalan independence supporters to nationalists like Le Pen.

The Senatùr struggles to gather the thousand signatures necessary for the contest, which crowns Salvini with 82% of the almost 10,000 votes from the militants.

And from there, a new era opens for leghismo. An era in which the founder is increasingly less central.

If Bossi and Salvini do not directly argue, their lawyers for the symbol do, while the new secretary initiates the national turnaround.

"I do not share his openings to the South," says the 'capò, who on September 17, 2017 at Pontida for the first time is not on the stage of the kermesse he invented.

"Angry? Quite. It's a sign that I have to leave...

In a few months, Salvini will leave this League to found one with his name in the symbol: "The noble fathers of the League are the 9 million Italians who give us their vote".

Bossi becomes the reference point of the Committee of the North, excluded from the center-right coalition for the regional elections in Lombardy.

"A mistake, a missed opportunity to assert the demands of Autonomy and the requests of the northern militancy," the last public criticism from the 'capò who would never have wanted to relinquish leadership.