In the wake of Berlusconi, Umberto Bossi wraps up an era

For La Stampa, the Northern League has been shaken by nothing less than “earthquake”. The resignation of Umberto Bossi, founder and until recently undisputed leader of the populist, pro-autonomy party is, according to the Turin daily, “the surrender that closes out an era”.

Bossi was pushed out by the revelations about the public financing of his party diverted to pay the expenses of his family, including his designated heir Renzo. A triumvirate replaces him as party secretary, while he has been offered the honorary position of President.

According to the Turin daily, “it is no coincidence that the farewell of Umberto Bossi comes barely five months after the departure of Silvio Berlusconi”, who had put together a government three times with the League: “As with some disconsolate widowers, the one could not survive without the other. Their exit from the scene suddenly changes, and probably for good, the make-up of the Italian right and the national political landscape as a whole.”

According to La Repubblica, the separatist Bossi, who “has for years railed against thieving Rome” and “the robber state”, is the victim of a “singular backlash”. “The League turned out to have thieves at home, even with Bossi. As for the vandalism, it was happening in his office at the expense of taxpayers' money.”

However, notes the Corriere della Sera, the image of the fiery “Senatùr” who regularly evoked the secession of an imaginary Padania had been in decline for a long time —

The rebel leader, prisoner of his political paranoia, increasingly obsessed with “conspiracy” as his leadership weakened, had grown a little more out of touch every day with the vast number of small businesses in the North who had bet on the League. [...] “Those who believed in the tax revolt, in emancipation from the bureaucracy and the machinery of the state, and in the freedom of the North, had lost confidence in the mirage of the League for some time.