Lega (political party)

Lega (English: League), officially named Lega per Salvini Premier (English: League for Salvini Premier, LSP or LpSP), is a right-wing populist political party in Italy led by Matteo Salvini. The LSP is the informal successor of Lega Nord (English: Northern League, LN). The LSP was established in December 2017 as the sister party of the LN, active in northern Italy, and as the replacement of Us with Salvini (NcS), LN's previous affiliate in central and southern Italy. The new party aimed at offering LN's values and policies to the rest of the country. Some political commentators described the LSP as a parallel party of the LN, with the aim of politically replacing it, also because of its statutory debt of €49 million.

Since January 2020, the LN became mostly inactive and was practically supplanted by the LSP, which is active all around Italy. The LSP came third in the 2018 Italian general election and first in the 2019 European Parliament election in Italy. Like the LN, the LSP is a confederation of regional parties, of which the largest and long-running are Liga Veneta (LV) and Lega Lombarda (LL), established in 1980 and 1984, respectively. Despite misgivings within the party's Padanian nationalist faction, the political base of the LSP is in northern Italy, where the party gets most of its support and where it has maintained the traditional autonomist outlook of the LN, especially in Lombardy and Veneto.

In February 2021, the LSP joined the Draghi government of national unity. After a disappointing result in the 2022 Italian general election, the party joined the Meloni government with five ministers, including Giancarlo Giorgetti as minister of Economy and Finance and Salvini as deputy prime minister and minister of Infrastructure and Transport. The LSP also participates in 14 regional governments, including those of the two autonomous provinces. Five regional presidents, including Attilio Fontana (Lombardy), Luca Zaia (Veneto), and Massimiliano Fedriga (Friuli-Venezia Giulia), are party members. Fedriga is also the president of the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces.