© picture alliance / ROPI | Consilvio/Fotogramma
Umberto Bossi, a central figure in Italian politics in recent decades, has died. He was 84 years old. He died Thursday, March 19, at the Ospedale di Circolo in Varese, where he had been hospitalized. His health had gradually deteriorated in recent years, partly due to the effects of the stroke that struck him in 2004, from which he never fully recovered.
Life and political career
Umberto Bossi was born in 1941 in Cassano Magnago, in the province of Varese. In the 1960s he broke off his studies in medicine to devote himself entirely to politics. After an initial commitment to the Partito di Unità Proletaria per il Comunismo and to the ARCI, he became involved in autonomist movements in northern Italy. The meeting with Bruno Salvatori and the experience within the Union Valdôtaine marked a turning point in his political trajectory.
In 1979 he met Roberto Maroni, with whom he shared a long political period. In 1982 he founded the weekly Lombardia autonomista, and two years later he initiated the Lega Autonomista Lombarda. In 1989 he created the Lega Nord, a political project that brought together several regionalist movements in northern Italy, including the Liga Veneta, Piemònt Autonomista and Union Ligure.
He was first elected senator in 1987, after which he was nicknamed ""il Senatùr". In the 1990s, he became the main promoter of the "Padania" political project , which he also supported through communication channels such as Radio Padania and TelePadania.
At the institutional level, Bossi held numerous positions: he was Minister for Institutional Reforms and Devolution in the second Berlusconi government (2001) and Minister for Reforms for Federalism in the fourth Berlusconi government (2008). His career played out between the Italian and European Parliaments, always under the banner of the Lega.
In 2012, he stepped down as party leader after a scandal involving the management of the Lega's funds, which included members of his family. Since then, he retained the title of honorary president for the life of the movement.
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