At the age of 67, former minister and League secretary Roberto Maroni passed away in his home in Varese. Maroni, who was also president of the Lombardy Region from 2013 to 2018, has been unwell for quite some time. He had been there at the start of the Northern League with Umberto Bossi. He had been out of public life since 2021 when he first learned he had the fatal illness that eventually took him. The funeral is scheduled for Friday morning in Varese.
Salvini’s farewell remarks to Roberto Maroni In the words of Meloni, “He served institutions with common sense and concreteness,” the League is “always and forever.”
Maroni’s loved ones: “Farewell, eternal optimist; our lovely Bobo passed away on Monday at 4 o’clock. In his final moments, he continued to respond “good” to the question of how he was doing from those who knew him. You epitomized the character of Bobo, the eternal optimist. You have been an excellent member of the human family and companion.” In these remarks, Roberto Maroni’s loved ones broke the news of his passing. To that I would add a quote from Emmily Dickinson: “He who is loved knows no death, for love is immortality, or rather, it is the divine essence.” Hello, Bobo, this is the final farewell.
The League’s humble beginnings with Bossi – Roberto Maroni, who began life in Varese in 1955, rose to prominence as a prominent Italian politician. As a student, he studied law and voted for Proletarian Democracy. His life was altered by meeting Umberto Bossi in 1979; he later remarked, “if he is the father of the League, I am his mother.” That was the day he decided to make politics his career, leaving football and music as hobbies. He regularly attended Milan games at San Siro, where he also played blues on the Hammond organ with his band Distretto 51 and listened to songs by his musical hero, Bruce Springsteen.
He has served as a minister on three separate occasions and was one of the 80 Leghisti who entered parliament as League representatives in 1992. He served as Minister of Labor and Social Policies from 2008 until 2011, and as Minister of the Interior twice (from 1994 to 1995 and again from 2008 until 2011; the first time he was also Vice President of the Council).
League Secretary – Maroni was selected as part of a triumvirate in April 2012 to fill the void left by Bossi as party secretary until the League congress. The assembly then elected him secretary three months later on 1 July 2012, and he served until 15 December 2013, when he was replaced by Matteo Salvini (who in greeting him called him “Leghista sempre e per sempre”). All of Maroni’s political career, however, has been intertwined with the League, leading to tense interactions with both Bossi and Salvini. Since the fall of the first center-right administration in 1995, when he rejected the no-confidence vote made by Bossi and was expelled from the party, he has gone from being the Senator’s right-hand man to an outright opponent on many occasions.
Hospitalization of Umberto Bossi in Varese, where the “First the North” slogan originated, did not last long; Bossi’s subsequent letter of apology signaled his return to the party and marked the beginning of the difficult phase of the secessionist League, to which Maroni contributed by coming up with the now-iconic slogan.
However, the true schism with Bossi was only put off until 2012, when judicial probes engulfed the whole “magic circle” around the League’s secretary, accusing him of all the same things the League had long accused rival political parties of doing. Once Bossi realized the moment had come to clean up, he, too, joined the legendary evening of the brooms of Bergamo, which marked the actual transfer between the two. Maroni led the mutiny of the militants when he was forbidden to represent the League at any official event.
To lead the Lombardy region, he received 42.8% of the vote in the 2013 regional elections. He decided against running in the 2018 election. When sickness struck a year ago, he had to drop out of the race to become mayor of Varese. In 2021, he conducted the Consulta against caporalato after being summoned by the Interior Ministry.
The hospitalization in January of 2021 in Varese was the result of an ailment that had initially been diagnosed in January of 2021. Maroni had just gotten inside his house in Lozza (Varese) when he suddenly became unsteady on his feet and fell to the floor. Later, after his release, he made the following observation: “Though challenging, the situation is now under control. The appropriate research is now being conducted by me “. After that, he underwent more hospitalizations and surgery in Milan and Varese.
