Matteo Salvini’s League has moved towards a showdown over its leadership, as a revolt by the party’s Northern wing raises the prospect of a change at the top and possibly a split.
Pressure on Salvini to change the League’s political direction, and to give up at least part of his grip on its leadership, has been building for months. It has intensified in recent weeks as Roberto Vannacci’s new right-wing party, Futuro Nazionale (National Future), has surged in the polls and moved ahead of the League.
The latest SWG poll for Tg La7, published on August 31, put Futuro Nazionale at 7.5 per cent, ahead of Forza Italia, on 7.1 per cent. The League stood at 5.7 per cent, up from 5.5 per cent in the previous survey.
The figures are particularly damaging for Salvini because Vannacci, who was elected to the European Parliament on the League’s list in 2024 and made one of its deputy federal secretaries, left the party on February 3, 2026 to launch his own political movement and is now competing directly for the same right-wing electorate.
Against this backdrop, on September 1 a group of former League parliamentarians and officials announced the creation of the Comitato per la convocazione del congresso federale della Lega Nord (Committee for the Convening of the Federal Congress of the Northern League), established in Forlì, northern Italy, on August 28. Led by former League MP Gianluca Pini, the initiative has so far gathered more than 100 mandates and signatures from League activists.
The committee is seeking to reconvene the national assembly of the old Lega Nord and restore the full political activity of its statutory bodies. The Lega Nord was the autonomist party that Salvini progressively transformed into the current nationwide political force after becoming its leader in 2013.
Its demand is addressed to Igor Iezzi, the MP who has run the Lega Nord as commissioner since January 2020 and whom the promoters accuse of blocking a congress not held for nine years. They have said they are ready to go to the civil courts. At stake is the historic Alberto da Giussano symbol, owned by the old party and lent to Salvini’s Lega per Salvini Premier.
Legally, this is possible because the old Lega Nord was never formally dissolved when Salvini transformed the movement into a nationwide party. It remained a separate legal entity, with its own statutes and governing bodies, even as its political activity was suspended. It has been kept dormant while it repays €49 million to the Italian State over electoral reimbursements a court found had been improperly obtained.
With this initiative, the challenge to Salvini is becoming increasingly organised and now has two distinct, potentially converging dimensions. One is the old Lega Nord, formally outside his current organisation, which according to analysts could provide an organisational vehicle for forces inside the current party seeking to challenge Salvini’s leadership.
The other comes from within the current League, where Northern regional presidents and senior politicians are pushing for a change in the party’s political direction, greater regional influence and a stronger focus on autonomy.
It remains to be seen whether and how these two rebellious currents will coordinate with each other.
Several Italian political commentators have described these developments as the emergence of the framework for a deeper battle within and around the League, one that could ultimately lead to a split. Many see the September 20 Pontida gathering as the likely moment of reckoning.
The small town near Bergamo, in Lombardy, has hosted the League’s traditional annual gathering since 1990. Under founder Umberto Bossi, Pontida became a political ritual celebrating Northern autonomy and opposition to power concentrated in Rome. Bossi died on March 19, 2026 aged 84, and this year’s rally will be the first held without him.
Salvini’s transformation of the party did not erase Pontida’s importance. The gathering continued as a political festival and national meeting point for League supporters.
On August 19, Il Foglio described one possible outcome at Pontida as a League “separated under the same roof”. The newspaper reported that Lombardy president Attilio Fontana, Friuli-Venezia Giulia president Massimiliano Fedriga and Luca Zaia, who governed Veneto from 2010 to 2025 and now presides over its regional council, could use the September 20 rally to push for a party congress and present a united Northern front.
The three are among the most powerful political figures in the regions historically associated with the League and are widely regarded as part of the internal current pushing for a change in Salvini’s political direction, including, more cautiously in public, a possible change of leadership.
According to reports in the Italian press, the question of Salvini’s leadership has also been raised directly in private. Fontana has reportedly urged Salvini to step back and make room for a different leadership arrangement, although he has avoided publicly calling for his resignation.
In an interview with Corriere della Sera published on August 17, Fontana refused to rule out any solution to the leadership crisis, saying he excluded nothing, “not even a step back” by the secretary. He stopped short of explicitly calling for Salvini’s resignation.
Neither Zaia nor Fedriga has announced plans to leave the League. Both are still seeking to reshape the existing party from within. Fontana has also explicitly distanced himself from the initiative seeking to revive the old Lega Nord, saying it had “nothing to do with” the discussions the Northern presidents are holding with Salvini, and there is no evidence that Zaia or Fedriga are formally involved in it.
For now, this does not amount to a new party being launched or to the Northern presidents breaking away from the League. Salvini has ruled out standing aside and has called the party leadership to a two-day meeting in Rome on September 8 and 9, before Pontida. The League said it was surprised that figures who had “risked killing” the old party were reappearing in search of posts.
All eyes are now turning to Pontida. The September 20 gathering could become the moment when the League’s internal tensions come to a head, forcing Salvini and the Northern leadership to confront questions left unresolved: The party’s political direction, its relationship with its Northern roots and, ultimately, who should lead it.
