The founder of the Italian Northern League party, Umberto Bossi, former minister and defender of the independence of the northern regions of the country, passed away this Thursday, at the age of 84, confirming his party structure.
Bossi died in hospital in Varese (north), where he had been admitted to intensive care.
“The entire League community [Norte] is deeply affected and saddened by the death of founder Umberto Bossi and joins his family with affection and consternation”, said the party in a summary statement, in addition to having canceled all actions scheduled for Friday.
This veteran and controversial politician, one of the protagonists of recent Italian history, founded in 1989 the Northern League bringing together different regionalist movements with the aim of achieving independence for northern Italy, known as Padania.
Bossi controlled the party until 2012 and, a year later, succeeded him Matteo Salviniwhich converted the old Northern League into the simple ‘Liga’, a formation of the national extreme right that denied old independence aspirations.
One of Bossi’s political pupils and former president of the Veneto region (north), Luca Zaiawas one of the first to react to the news of his death, publishing a photo on his social networks which reads “Ciao Umberto” (Goodbye Umberto).
The Italian Prime Minister, Georgie Melonsleader of the also extremist Brothers of Italy, also joined in the condolences, recalling the “political passion” of the leader of the Northern League.
“Umberto Bossi, with his political passion, marked an important phase in Italian history and made a fundamental contribution to the formation of the first right-wing government. In this moment of great pain, I am close to his family and his political community”, wrote the head of the Italian Executive on the social network X.
Salvini’s League is currently part of Giorgia Meloni’s government, as is Tajani’s conservative Forza Italia, which also expressed its regret at the death.
Who was Umberto Bossi?
Bossi (Cassano Magnago, 1941) was one of the great protagonists of Italian politics, especially the so-called Second Republic that emerged in the mid-nineties.
Several times deputy and senator since 1987, as well as an MEP, he came to the Government through the hand of Silvio Berlusconi, of whom he was an ally and minister on two occasions: of Institutional Reforms, between 2001 and 2004, and of Federalism, between 2008 and 2011.
But Umberto Bossi is also remembered for many of his controversial gestures. For example, he even declared the independence of Padania, an imaginary region above the River Po, in September 1996, although it had no practical value.
A critic of the Italian State, he was convicted in 1997 of the crime of outrage when he stated: “I wipe my ass with the Italian flag.”
With mobility problems due to a stroke, in 2012 he resigned as secretary of the Northern League, following a scandal over the diversion of party funds to his family.
