Salvini: Lega congress within a month; I reckon – and I expect – that someone else will stand as a candidate
The congress will therefore be an elective one, not merely a policy-setting one. No date or venue has yet been set. ‘Let me say that, as a Milanese, I’d like to hold it in Milan.’ All eyes are on the next moves by the faction of northern governors
Key points
“The League’s extraordinary congress will be held within a month. Everything can be discussed: the party constitution, political strategy, and alliances. The Federal Council unanimously reaffirmed its confidence in me as Secretary, but as I said yesterday, I want the Congress – which represents all party members, all mayors, and all regions – to have the final say. I am counting on and waiting for someone else to stand as a candidate.” So said Matteo Salvini at the end of the party’s Federal Council meeting, convened to set out the arrangements for the extraordinary congress announced by the Carroccio secretary in Pontida.
Salvini: party conference within a month, hopefully in Milan
There is still no date or venue. “I’ve asked for this to be done quickly – within a month at the latest – because with the budget bill, the wars, the high cost of petrol and gas, we can’t carry on like this,” added Salvini. There’s no date because the Rules Committee has to amend the rules; we’re not some makeshift party – we have tens of thousands of members, we have rules, and fortunately we have nearly a thousand mayors and deputy mayors. There’s no venue. Let me just say that, as a Milanese, I’d love to hold it in Milan.”
Elective congress: majority of delegates back Salvini
An elective congress, therefore, not merely a policy-setting one. Salvini pointed out at the press briefing that he had been appointed secretary by last year’s congress to serve until 2029. He also noted that the decision to effectively put his mandate to the vote to seek a vote of confidence was by no means a foregone conclusion. Although there appears to be little doubt as to the outcome. The vote will be cast by the very same delegates who crowned him by acclamation in Florence in April 2025. And the majority remain loyal to him. If the secretary, as seems likely, tables his own motion, it will be based on the line he repeated from the stage at Pontida: ‘Autonomists in Italia, patriots and sovereigntists in Europe, to prevent the autonomy we are securing in Lombardy’ and in Italia ‘from being expropriated by the bureaucrats in Brussels’.
Possible moves by the Northern faction
The question now is: what will the northern faction do? It has been caught off guard by Salvini’s move. At the Federal Council meeting, the Senate group leader and head of the Lega Lombarda, Massimiliano Romeo, and the governor of Lombardy, Attilio Fontana – who in recent weeks have publicly criticised Salvini – came under fire. Romeo did not take part in the vote of confidence in Salvini (leaving early, claiming that the vote was not on the agenda). Fontana (who is not an ex officio member in his capacity as regional president) did not have the right to vote. Luca Zaia (in Armenia) and Massimiliano Fedriga were absent due to official engagements. It is difficult to imagine that the former Doge Luca Zaia, the candidate with the greatest personal support, will enter the fray. At least not this time round. Romeo has not ruled out this possibility outright. However, the strategy will be decided jointly. One possibility is that he might table an alternative motion to formalise the minority position within the party. Such a motion would aim to establish a federalist party modelled on the Bavarian CSU-CDU (with three inter-regional territorial branches: North, Centre, South), whilst reviving the ‘Northern Question’.
