Lega Nord

The Northern League (Italian: Lega Nord) is an Italian political party that advocates autonomy for a part of Northern Italy they call Padania (see the article for usage of the name). It is a personality-driven party led by Umberto Bossi.

History

The party had its first successes in the late eighties, when Umberto Bossi, elected at the Italian Senate, got his title of Senatür, or senator in a northern Italian dialect, a nickname he kept also when he no longer was a senator. The support for the party skyrocketed in the early nineties because of the huge political corruption scandal known as Tangentopoli and the Mani pulite investigations.

The Northern League is a merger of the various regional movements (often named "league"), including the Lombard League (Lega lombarda) and the League of Venice (Łiga Veneta). The movement was founded in 1989, and became part of a governing coalition for the first time in Silvio Berlusconi's government in 1994; the League was instrumental to its demise by the end of the year.

After having forced Berlusconi to resign, the Northern League attacked him vehemently for years. In 1996 the movement announced that its aim was the independence of Northern Italy under the name Padania, a name referring to the Po River valley, but which the Northern League gave a geographically broader usage that has been steadily gaining currency, at least among its followers. The capital of Padania would be Mantua, and elections were organized by the party for a "northern parliament" (with no international recognition).

In 2001 they re-joined forces with Berlusconi's coalition, previous disagreements notwithstanding. The league is currently the most loyal party to Berlusconi's government, except of course Berlusconi's own. Today, they hold 30 of 630 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 17 of the 325 Senate seats.

In later years the League have deemphasised demands for independence, and focused rather on devolution, while remaining within the framework of Italy. In the European Parliament its MEPs work within the grouping Independence and Democracy.

Ideology

The league's culture is a mix of pride in the heritage of northern Italy (particularly with historical references to the anti-imperial Lombard League), distrust of southern Italians and especially of Roman authorities, often bordering on xenophobia, elements of Reaganomics, and independentism.

Reasons for the Initial Success

Especially in the early years, it exploited resentment against Rome and the Italian government, common in northern Italy, because some northern Italians felt that the governments in Rome wasted resources collected with northern Italians' taxes.

Racism against southern Italians, often dubbed terroni, and against immigrants, was also exploited. The Lega Nord's successes began roughly when large numbers of dark-skinned immigrants began to be spotted in northern-italian cities.

Another key factor was public disillusionment with old political parties, as the scandals of Tangentopoli were unveiled from 1992 on.

Federalism or Secession

The exact program of Lega Nord was not clear in the early years: some opponents claimed it wanted secession in Yugoslav style, other times it appeared they simply requested more autonomy for northern regions. The League eventually settled on the federalism, that became rapidly a buzzword and a popular issue in most Italian political parties, with the exception of fascists and communists, which opposed it for respectively breaking up the motherland and undermining cross-regional solidarity, especially important in Italy because of the wide economic divide between the rich north and the poorer south.

The party later moved on, in 1995, to open secessionism, declaring the splitting of Italy in three entities, named by Lega-Nord ideologist Gianfranco Miglio: Padania, Etruria and the South. The South was only later given the name Ausonia. As a symbolic act of birth of the new nation, Bossi took a bottle of water from the springs of Po (which in Latin is padus, giving background for the name Padania), which was poured in the sea of Venice by a little girl a few days later.

A voluntary group of militants, the green shirts (green being the colour of Padania), was also established. Opponents saw in this an echo of the black shirts of the fascist movement, but the green shirts have declared themselves non-violent, and have not been found to possess any weapons.

The renewed alliance with Berlusconi in 2001 forced the party to tone down, and Padania became the name of a proposed "macro-region", for which the League asks some degree of autonomy. The new buzzword devolution (often used in English) was also introduced, but with less success than federalism.

The choice to tone down and settle just for devolution instead of secession caused criticism by part of his party's base, which led to the formation of some minor breakaway factions.

Accusations of Racism

While the League leadership dismiss charges of racism, there have been instances of speeches and interviews delivered by some exponents and a supporters banner, pointing to that. Umberto Bossi himself said that African immigrants, whom he called Bingo-bongos, should not receive popular housing with the same rights of ethnic Italians.^[1] Erminio Boso proposed to segregate immigrants in train cars different than for Italians. ^[2] Umberto Bossi, in an interview, suggested to open fire on the boats of immigrants who would disembark in Italy ^[3], but after widespread criticism he declared he meant the empty boats. The former mayor of Treviso, Giancarlo Gentilini, talking about those he called immigrant slackers, said that "We should dress them up like hares and bang-bang-bang"^[4]. In June 2005, at a festival organised by the League, a banner inciting to "rape Pecoraro", (Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, secretary of the Federation of the Greens and openly bisexual) was exposed; the banner caused outcry, and was condemned by the League's leadership^[5].

In 2005, Mario Borghezio, MP for the League at the European Parliament, was found guilty of arson, for having set on fire the belongings of some immigrants sleeping under a bridge in Turin in 2000^[6].

Through the association Associazione Umanitaria Padana Onlus ("Onlus" Padanian Humanitarian Association), the Northern League participates in social and economic humanitarian projects which are intended to respect local cultures, traditions, and identities. The campaigns are carried out in underdeveloped nations or in those that have suffered from war or from natural catastrophes. Locations of recent missions have included Darfur, Iraq, and Afghanistan. ^[7].

See also

• List of active autonomist and secessionist movements

Notes and references

1. ^  Milano, Bossi contro il prefetto "Niente case ai bingo bongo". La Repubblica, 4 December 2003, accessed 15 Aug 2005.
2. ^  Paolo Rumiz, Sul "treno degli africani" Vagoni separati? No, grazie. La Repubblica, 19 January 2003, accessed 15 Aug 2005.
3. ^  Giovanna Pajetta, Bossi prende il cannone, accessed 15 Aug 2005 on a Geocities site that says it is reprinted from Il Manifesto, 17 June 2003.
4. ^  Emilio Marrese Ramadan, sindaco nega lo spazio Benetton concede il palazzetto. La Repubblica, 3 December 2002, accessed 15 Aug 2005.
5. ^  Invitation to 'rape' Pecoraro on a banner at a League festival, article by La Repubblica.
6. ^  Borghezio, the fire was willful, article by Il Gazzettino, September 6 2005.
7. ^  Umanitaria Padana: in Darfur missione compiuta ("Umanitaria Padana: in Darfur, mission completed"), article in La Padania, October 6 2005.

External links

• Lega Nord official site
• La Padania official party organ (newspaper)
• Miss Padania beauty pagent supported by Lega Nord
• Movimento Giovani Padani Lega Nord's youth movement
• Associazione Umanitaria Padana Onlus Humanitarian association

Political parties in Italy (complete version, historical parties)
The Union	Olive Tree (Democrats of the Left – Democracy is Freedom – Daisy) – Communist Refoundation Party – Democratic Left Minor: Rose in the Fist (Democratic Socialists – Italian Radicals) – Party of Italian Communists – Italy of Values – Federation of the Greens – Popular–UDEUR Micro: European Republican Movement – Democratic Republicans – Italian Democratic Socialist Party – United Consumers – Middle-of-the-Road Italy Regional: South Tyrolean People's Party – Trentino Tyrolean Autonomist Party – Valdotanian Renewal – Southern Democratic Party – Sardinia Project
House of Freedoms	Forza Italia – National Alliance – Union of Christian and Centre Democrats – Lega Nord Minor: Christian Democracy for the Autonomies – Movement for Autonomy – Pensioners' Party – Tricolour Flame – Social Action Micro: New Italian Socialist Party – Italian Republican Party – Liberal Reformers Regional: Veneto for the European People's Party – Sardinian Reformers – Sardinian People's Party – Sardinian Democratic Union – New Sicily
Others	Micro: Italian Associations in South America – Italians in the World Regional: Valdotanian Union – Edelweiss Aosta Valley – Autonomist Federation – Union for South Tyrol – The Libertarians – North-East Project Complete list

In order to be included in this template a party needs to fulfil at list one of the following conditions:

• having at least a MP or a MEP;
• having at least two regional deputies, elected in the same Regional Council;
• having a minister or a deputy-minister;
• having a President of Region or a President of Province or a Mayor of a big town/city;
• having scored more than 1% in the last general/european election at the national level;
• having scored more than 4% in the last regional (provincial in the case of Bolzano and Trento) election.

The parties are classified as:

• major: parties which scored more than 4% in the last general/european election at the national level (or having at least 30 MPs);
• minor: parties which scored between 0.5% and 4% in the last general/european election at the national level (or having at least 5 MPs);
• micro: parties which scored less than 0.5% in the last general/european election at the national level (or having less than 5 MPs);
• regional: minor or micro-parties active only in one Region.