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PADANIASTAN

PADANIASTAN

Thirty years after its electoral debut, Northern League is the oldest political group SITTING in THE ITALIAN Parliament. UNDERESTIMATED in the early ‘90S as a phenomenon OF POLITICAL APATHY, then considered dangerous due to the emergence of xenophobic tensions, Bossi's party was able to transform what at first seemed extravagant ideological AND ethnic claims into a widespread political sentiment, contributing to the disintegration of the country's political assets in its delicate transition between First and Second Republic.

From a regional protest movement on the edge of folklore, to A PARTY HOLDING THE BALANCE OF POWER OF center-right governments, the NORTHERN League has innovated THE communication AND the places of aggregation with its SUPPORTERS, proving to be - after the disappearance of the ITALIAN COMMUNIST PARTY - the only party really rooted in the territory: the 'Wind of the North' over the years has freed itself from the FOOTHILL ghetto of the Lombard valleys, until it blew in factories and cities, well below the Po RIVER, the natural border of Padania*.

*Padania (/pəˈdeɪniə/Italian: [paˈdaːnja]) is an alternative name and proposed independent state encompassing Northern Italy, derived from the name of thE PO RIVER (Latin Padus), whose basin includes much of the regioN centered on the PO VALLEY (Pianura Padana), the major plain of Northern Italy.

I use the Italian flag to wipe my arse
— Umberto Bossi, Cabiate rally, 1997

NOTA BENE: THESE PICTURES WERE TAKEN BETWEEN 2009 AND 2012. Since MATTEO Salvini's rise to leadership in 2013, the party extended its scope to the rest of Italy AND DEFINITELY QUITTED THE Padanian nationalisT IDEOLOGY, TURNING INTO A RIGHT-WING, POPULIST AND CONSERVATIVE PARTY.