one of the central characters in Italian politics for decades precisely because of his eccentricity, died this Thursday in his homeland, Varese, at the age of 84, after being admitted to a hospital on Wednesday. Charismatic, an artist of the broad brush but with a great political sense, he was the founder and historical leader of the in the eighties and convulsed the Italian electoral board in the nineties. He did it with an anti-establishment movement that, with the twists and turns that life takes, is now the oldest party in Italy, although its political career was affected by a stroke in 2004. He returned little by little to the scene, he was minister twice, but ended up resigning in 2012, punctuated by a serious case of corruption. Then he was always in the shadow of his formation, until he was definitively relegated, and even confronted by its current leader, Matteo Salvini.
Bossi started out as a communist, but his great idea was to invent Padan nationalism, exploiting the vein of social unrest and discontent with the political class in those years from the identity of the northern regions. Also with a strong racist and xenophobic component, both towards the southern Italians themselves (southerners), as well as immigrants. He founded the Lombard Autonomist League, which later became the Lombard League and in 1989 he culminated his project in the Northern League, in which he was general secretary for 20 years and where similar acronyms converged (Lombard League, Venetian League, Piemònt Autonomista, Union Ligure, Emiliano-Romagnola League and Tuscan Alliance). Thus arose the powerful north wind that shook Italian politics. Bossi was already a senator in 1987, hence his historical nickname, Senatùr.
It was in a way a precursor of trends that would later gain great strength. That was a traditionalist and conservative populism with its revolutionary point, which attracted those disillusioned with any ideology under the proclamation of identity pride, the best thing they could think of as if it were an Asterix against the Romans. “The League has it tough” was one of its most commented slogans. “With the Italian flag I wipe my ass,” was also very popular, so much so that it earned him a sentence for vilifying the flag (he later had another for vilifying the head of state). Bossi, who appeared in a tank top before the press at the door of his house, was prolific in simple and direct slogans like this, and another of the most famous was “Rome thief”, that idea that has reaped so much fortune that the capital steals from us. He was partly right, he read very well the fatigue of small businessmen in the richest and most productive area of Italy, the boredom with taxes in a country that did not work.
It fell at the perfect moment, the collapse of the major Italian parties at the beginning of the nineties with Clean Hands, the great investigation against corruption. In a very troubled river, which in his case was the Po, a symbol of Padania, a fantasy land in the plain at the foot of the Alps, Bossi knew how to fish very well and rose like foam. He was a political animal, lazy, barbaric, irreverent, with a hoarse voice, what the indignant voter wanted at that moment. For a time it fought for independence, which it adorned with Celtic paraphernalia, Nibelung festivals, and druid rites. All very folkloric, but effective, although it is not clear how much they really believed it, because later they drifted towards a practical aspiration for a system of autonomies.
Fortune wanted him to cross paths with Silvio Berlusconi, the other political giant who emerged at that time. They understood each other well, because deep down they were both kind of likeable scoundrels and hustlers, with a sense of spectacle (both were singers in their youth, Bossi had Donato as his stage name, and he was also a poet). Although Berlusconi clearly did better in life, as he was the richest man in Italy. Bossi never had a defined job, although he started medicine and never finished it, although his wife did not know it and for a time he left home in the mornings with a briefcase saying he was going to work and going to the bar. Politics was ultimately the vocation in which he found his destiny.
Bossi and Berlusconi were joined by the National Alliance (AN), Gianfranco Fini’s post-fascist party, and together they formed a new right-wing bloc that won the elections in 1994 and has essentially held on to this day. With periodic changes of weight among their forces: the first leader was Berlusconi; Then it seemed that it was Salvini, Bossi’s successor at the head of the League; and now she is Giorgia Meloni, raised in AN. In reality, Salvini mutated the party into a far-right populist force: he removed “North” from the name and left it in La Liga, with the plan to reach all of Italy, including the south. Who would have thought it when they insulted Italians from Rome on down. But that’s another story.
In addition to the stroke, Bossi was recently taken down by an ugly case of corruption in the party, with all the classic vaudeville overtones of Italian politics. In that sense, the anti-system party integrated perfectly into the system. After (49 million which, among other things, went to buy diamonds in Tanzania) the party must return what was stolen to the Italian State, in annual installments, for 80 years. It was the final and definitive painful paradox of the party that came to break with the State and fight against taxes: now it will be paying for its entire life. That marked the final decline of the Senatùr.
But deep down, due to his indomitable character and closeness in personal treatment, even his adversaries appreciated him. One of them, Pierluigi Bersani, who was leader of the Democratic Party (PD), said upon hearing the news: “He was the most worthy adversary I have ever had in my life, and in the end, the one I loved the most.”
