Regionalist leagues in Italy

Regionalist "leagues" were established, especially in northern Italy, since the 1970s.^[1][2] The six main central-northern leagues were eventually merged into Lega Nord in 1991.

The parties were opposed to the centralised tax policy, political system and the corruption. Eventually, the movement became an anti-system party against partitocrazia.^[1] In its early years, the leagues supported European federalism allying themselves with the European Federalist Party.^[3] Afterwards, most of them moved towards Euroscepticism.^[4] The movement believed that northern Italy subsidized the poorer South through taxes.^[5] Lega Nord's position towards the South was even compared to racism.^[6] While Lega Nord joined the centre-right coalition, other parties joined the centre-left coalition or remained independent.

In the 1960s the Venetian Regionalist Autonomous Movement campaigned for the institution of the ordinary regions, including Veneto, prefigured by the Italian Constitution.^[7][8] In 1979 Liga Veneta was the first league to be established.^[2] It was inspired by and cooperated with other similar regionalist parties like the Ossolan Union for Autonomy (UOPA), formed in 1977, and more established regionalist parties like the Valdostan Union (UV) and the Friuli Movement.^[3][9] Umberto Bossi, who would launch Lega Lombarda in 1984, and UOPA ran on UV's Federalism list in the 1979 European Parliament election.^[10]

During the 1980s, the List for Trieste (1983) and Liga Veneta (1984) lent their symbols to other leagues allowing them to compete in elections.^[3] In 1989, Lega Lombarda, Liga Veneta, Piemont Autonomista, Union Ligure, Lega Emiliano-Romagnola and Alleanza Toscana ran on the Lega Lombarda – Alleanza Nord list.^[1] In 1991, the Lega Nord was established as a federation of these leagues.^[5]

In 1989, Bossi's brother-in-law split from Liga Veneta and founded Alleanza Lombarda Autonomia (ALA).^[11] By 1996, Lega Alpina Lumbarda (which won a seat in 1992),^[12] the Piedmontese Union, the Valdostan Autonomist Union and ALA merged into Lega per l'Autonomia – Alleanza Lombarda (LAL). Lega Autonomia Veneta, Lega Autonomia Friuli and Lega Autonomia Trentino established in 1993 Lega delle Regioni^[13] and later the North-East Movement. Another more long-lived competitor, Liga Veneta Repubblica (LVR) was established in 1998. None of these ever gained major success but both the LAL (0.12%) and the LVR (0.06%) were crucial for the victory of The Union over the House of Freedoms backed by Lega Nord in the 2006 general election.^[14] In Veneto rival groups have included the North-East Project (2004), Venetian Independence (2012) and the Party of Venetians (2019).

In the autonomous regions of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Aosta Valley, the South Tyrolean People's Party, the Trentino Tyrolean Autonomist Party and the already-mentioned UV were already active^[5] limiting the leagues' success there.^[15] In the 1990s, LVR and the Lega delle Regioni joined the wider Federalismo coalition. In the late 2000s and early 2010s Lega Nord allied with UV's Aosta Valley coalition and sometimes with South Tyrol's Die Freiheitlichen.

Lega Nord joined the Pole of Freedoms, along with Forza Italia, in 1994. After Lega Nord broke the alliance later that year, splinter groups formed the Federalist Party,^[1] the Federalist Italian League and the Federalists and Liberal Democrats, none of which obtained electoral success. Lega Nord returned to the centre-right coalition in 2001. Under Matteo Salvini, Lega Nord rebranded as Lega per Salvini Premier, ran countrywide and adopted a right-wing populist posture.^[4] Other notable splits have included the Autonomists for Europe (1999) and the Pact for the North (2024).

For the 1992 general election, 71 symbols for "leagues" were submitted. They included an alliance between Lega Nuova and the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, Piemont Liber^[12] and the Housewives Pensioners League (which included former members of Autonomist Greens, Pensioners' Party and the earlier Union Ligure).^[16] Lega Nord saw these minor lists as spoiler parties.^[12]

As a reaction to Lega Nord's hostile stance toward southern Italy, Neo-Bourbonism was reawakened.^[6] Former members of the Italian Social Movement founded the Southern Action League.^[18] Nevertheless, Lega Nord tried to gain a foothold in the South. In the mid-1990s, LN ran as Lega Italia Federale in Central and Southern Italy, they founded the Lega Sud Ausonia which distanced from the Lega Nord in the early 2000s and the Federalist Alliance as its replacement in 2003. Us with Salvini in 2014 was the last attempt in forming a Southern sister-party. Only when Lega Nord transformed into Lega in 2018, Lega was able to establish itself in southern Italy, South Tyrol and the Aosta Valley. Other southern regionalist parties have included the Sicily-based Movement for Autonomy, while Sardinia also has had a long history of Sardinian nationalism and regionalist parties, notably including the Sardinian Action Party-

Outside of Italy, the leagues inspired the Ticino League in Switzerland^[19] and the Popular Alliance in San Marino.^[20] The Savoyan League had some success in the 1998 regional elections outperforming the older Savoy Region Movement^[15] but it could not run again when parties had to put list in any department of a region.^[21] In 2010, Jacques Bompard founded the League of the South which was inspired by Lega Nord.^[22] Similarly to the Popular Alliance and Lega Sud, Greeks for the Fatherland (founded in 2020) adopted a logo inspired by Lega's Monument to the Warrior of Legnano with a statue of Leonidas I but the party was de facto neofascist and acted as a replacement for Golden Dawn.^[23][24]