Kirchgaessner & Tondo, The Guardian. 1 III 2018

Salvini extends Northern League’s appeal as far south as Sicily

It has been three years since Matteo Salvini set foot in Sicily and issued an apology on behalf of the Northern League for years of abuse directed toward southern Italians by his once separatist party, which had long dismissed them as parasites dragging down the country.

It took riot police to protect him from the crowds in Palermo, who greeted him by throwing eggs and tomatoes on that visit in 2015. But when Italians head to the polls in national elections on Sunday, Salvini’s efforts to make amends in the south are likely to pay off.

Campaigning now as The League – La Lega – the party is expected to win 7% or more of the vote in the region. Such a result would have been unthinkable in the 1990s, when its then leader called for the creation of a mythical-sounding state in northern Italy called Padania.

Where southerners were once depicted as lazy plunderers of northern Italy’s riches, Salvini has instead cast migrants, asylum seekers and Roma gypsies as the enemy of his “Italians first” ideology. In Sicily, where resentment of EU guidelines is rife, he has homed in on two industries close to locals’ hearts – agriculture and fishing.

The message is beginning to resonate.

“I have embraced Salvini’s ideas. He apologised for the offences by the Lega against us Sicilians and now has become a bearer of our interests and our problems,” says Angelo Attaguile, a Lega candidate for the senate from Catania.

“They attacked us for supporting a party that had offended Sicilians, but now the people agree with us and we even managed to get a deputy in the regional government elected in the last elections.”

An entrepreneur and Lega supporter in Catania, Rocco Zapparrata, said it was the only party that supported products made in Italy. “Compared to all the other political leaders, Salvini has come among the people, talking to the people. Others do not,” he said.

Despite the history of personal animosity between Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi, the Lega is running as part of a centre-right coalition that is headed by the former prime minister and is leading in the polls, but may fall short of winning an outright majority.

Under a “gentleman’s agreement” between the two men, if the coalition wins the party with more votes within it will determine the next prime minister. Berlusconi is ineligible to serve because of a tax conviction.

In an unpredictable race, Salvini is the only contender who has boasted that he will be the next occupant of Palazzo Chigi, the prime minister’s residence. Some analysts think the Lega will never be truly competitive in southern Italy, where Berlusconi and the populist Five Star Movement are jockeying for the lead, but Salvini’s performance in the south is considered one of the wildcards in the election.

Whatever the outcome of Sunday’s vote, the 44-year-old has one of the brightest futures in Italian politics. Berlusconi, 81, who is more moderate on foreign policy and immigration, has dominated politics on the right for decades, but his absence would leave a vacuum that Salvini is ready to fill.

In the final stretch of the campaign, Salvini has sought to downplay his xenophobia before national audiences. “Italy’s problem is not fascism, racism or communism,” he said. “It’s hunger for jobs.” He has vowed to defend Italy in Brussels and not grovel to the EU “with hat in hand”.

On one of his regular television appearances recently, he compared himself to Emmanuel Macron, the French president who recently unveiled tough proposals to crack down on migrants and asylum seekers.

Salvini’s rhetoric over the years makes it clear, however, that despite similarities between his call for mass deportations of migrants and Macron’s new proposals, there is a vast gulf between the two leaders on substance.

Salvini has won public attention by espousing outlandish and racist views, including his support for a proposal to racially segregate trains in Milan so that seats and carriages could be reserved for the Milanese.

Human rights advocates say he has damaged the country’s discourse. “Human rights do not live in a vacuum. The cultural, political and social climate are key for the enjoyment of rights in practice. The rhetoric put forward by Salvini and others is harming fundamental rights much more than certain laws can advance them,” says Francesco Palermo, an Italian senator who supports Roma gypsies’ rights.

Salvini’s angry and indignant populism may well have attracted more voters if not for the League’s rivalry with Italy’s other major populist party, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. He has also had to contend with intense friction within his own party, where more moderate voices such as that of the president of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia, compete for power.

It is Salvini, however, who is credited with expanding the League’s base from about 4% in 2012 to 13% today.

In Catania, Davide Cicero, a 26-year-old sports manager, notes that Sicilians have historically held important positions of power in Italian politics.

“None of them did important things for Sicily,” Cicero said. “So I do not care if Salvini is from the north or from the south. Salvini is much closer to the issues of Sicilians than other Sicilian politicians.”