A challenge to Salvini: the website set up by former Northern League members to call a party conference is now online

With the launch of the website “comitatofederale.org”, the challenge launched by a group of former Northern League MPs and provincial secretaries to convene the Northern League congress to secure the independence of Padania and take control of the party and its emblem (Alberto da Giussano). The mastermind behind the operation is former Northern League MP Gianluca Pini, who is locked in a power struggle with the current leadership of the old party, which is under the administration of Salvini-aligned MP Igor Iezzi. This is confirmed by Pini himself, the promoter of the ‘Committee for the Federal Congress’, who explains: ‘We had already collected almost 300 signatures the old-fashioned way, but we have now decided to complete all the necessary formal steps, and the website has been online since this afternoon. This is about being able to exercise our right to engage in politics within the political movement to which we have always belonged (the Northern League, ed.) and not having that right impeded by decisions that are not in the Northern League’s current best interests.’

The League for Salvini as Prime Minister and the Northern League are both based in Via Bellerio, but the former is a sort of spin-off of the latter, which is now inactive and has been reclassified as a ‘bad company’, obliged to pay the State the infamous 49 million in election reimbursements from the Bossi era, which the magistrates deemed irregular. And to which several thousand people continue to allocate their 2 per thousand.

The Northern League’s last congress was held in Milan in 2019, when the coexistence of the old Northern League and the new League for Salvini as Prime Minister was formalised, and political activity was effectively transferred to the latter. Since then, the old movement has, in fact, been placed under provisional administration. It is effectively a dormant organisation. However, it is the Northern League – the holder of the emblem featuring Alberto da Giussano – that has authorised its use in elections by the League for Salvini as Prime Minister. And there are many activists who hold membership of both organisations. For this reason, the congress would not merely be a gathering of veterans. It could re-establish the governing bodies of the old movement, elect new leaders and reopen the debate on the management of its political and symbolic legacy.

The Articles of Association stipulate that the Federal Congress is the representative body of all members and must be convened in ordinary session every five years. And since, according to the promoters of the initiative, the ordinary timeframe laid down in the Articles of Association has now long since passed, Article 20 of the Civil Code comes into play, and this is the course of action the Committee intends to take: the provision stipulates that the assembly must be convened when a reasoned request is made by ‘at least one-tenth of the members’ and that, if the directors fail to do so, it may be ordered by the president of the court. For this reason, the collection of signatures for a political initiative may turn into a legal battle.

The aim is to ascertain how many active ordinary members are prepared to formally support the initiative. And how many signatures are needed to reach the required quorum, given that it is unclear exactly how many members the Northern League currently has. “I would point out that signing the petition is free of charge and guarantees anonymity,” Pini explains. In fact, the names will not be made public or disclosed to third parties, but will only be used to formalise the request to convene the Congress; a necessary step to put an end to the long and disastrous Salvini Premier era.”