Lega’s Changing Tactics, Enduring Populism: Salvini’s Political Reset Ahead of 2027

In this commentary, Niccolò Capozzi examines Matteo Salvini’s political repositioning following Lega’s extraordinary congress in Milan on October 24–25, 2026. Drawing on the party’s responses to the financial, migration, and COVID-19 crises, Capozzi argues that Lega has repeatedly adapted its leadership style, political enemies, and definition of “the people” while preserving its fundamental populist antagonism between ordinary citizens and corrupt elites. Salvini’s reelection, the removal of his name from the party logo, and renewed emphasis on federalism reflect efforts to address internal divisions and declining electoral support. As Lega approaches Italy’s 2027 general election, its criticism of military assistance to Ukraine signals another potential strategic shift. Yet, Capozzi concludes, the party’s underlying populist grammar remains remarkably unchanged.

By Niccolò Capozzi*

On October 24–25, 2026, Italy’s far-right party, known as Lega, held an extraordinary congress in Milan. Its leader, Matteo Salvini, had called it after some northern party members had called for a more federal party that was more attentive to the North. Does this move signal a change of identity or a change of tactics? To find out, we need to look at how Lega has acted and communicated during past crises, where a clear pattern emerges.

During the 2008 financial crisis, the 2015 migration crisis, and the 2020–2023 COVID-19 pandemic, Lega changed its enemies, its leadership style, and the way it exploited each emergency to its own advantage; however, the core of its message remained the same. During the financial crisis, Umberto Bossi was the leader of Lega Nord (Northern League), a regionalist movement that differed from its current form and represented ‘Padania,’ the North of Italy. It pitted the ‘people’ – the productive North – against the elite in Rome (meaning the central state, not Silvio Berlusconi’s government, of which Lega Nord was itself a member) and a South described as parasitic and non-contributing. The EU and the euro remained in the background. This contrast between a ‘pure’ people and a corrupt elite is what the political scientist Cas Mudde identifies as the defining feature of populism.

Every year, Bossi held an annual party rally in Pontida, a small town near Bergamo. He spoke to his supporters about contemporary issues. His bond with them was so strong that he used dialectal words typical of the North and opened rallies with ‘Va Pensiero,’ the chorus from Verdi’s Nabucco that the party had adopted as its anthem instead of Italy’s national anthem. At the party congress in 2012, for example, he complained about having to ‘work six months a year to pay taxes and sustain the waste of the south’ – a sign of the resentment and aversion the party felt towards the other part of Italy. However, the party was soon to change.

In December 2013, Matteo Salvini became the leader and began turning the party into a national force; the word ‘Nord’ would later disappear from its symbol. In 2015, as the migration crisis unfolded, Salvini enjoyed complete tactical freedom because Lega was in opposition to the center-left government of Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD). During this period, the ‘people’ were identified as workers, the unemployed, and people with disabilities, whilst the enemies were irregular migrants, the NGOs helping them, and the Renzi government. In this instance, the crisis was portrayed as a sort of invasion by illegal immigrants, to the extent that a rally called ‘Stop Invasione’ (Stop the Invasion) was organized in October 2014 in Milan. Salvini called himself ‘Capitano’ and used short slogans designed for television – and thus to attract viewers. Subsequently, he brought the same message to the European Parliament, where he accused the EU of caring about immigrants while it ‘couldn’t care less about the unemployed.’

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Lega was back in opposition, having left Giuseppe Conte’s first government in 2019. Its communication strategy varied considerably; in March 2020, Salvini said that ‘we must shut everything down’; a few months later, he feared that hunger would kill more people than the virus; in 2021, he rejected the Green Pass – Italy’s COVID-19 certificate – saying that the people should not be subject to any kind of obligation. The enemies were Conte’s second government, its scientific advisory committee, virologists and, finally, Brussels, which was failing to act. His style also changed: he no longer addressed the public loudly from a stage but adopted a calmer, more institutional tone – partly because he spoke in the Senate and tabled bills. One detail worth noting: from February 2021, Lega was part of the Draghi government – the same government that introduced the Green Pass – yet it continued to oppose the measures. This is important for understanding how tactics adapt: the party changes its position but continues to present itself as the voice of the people who decide.

In all three crises, two elements have never changed: the opposition between a ‘pure’ people and a corrupt elite, and the moralization of politics. At the same time, the definition of ‘the people,’ the identity of the enemy, and the leader’s rhetoric were constantly shifting. Thus, the tactics changed while the underlying structure remained the same. It is through this lens that this year’s Milan congress should be analyzed.

Salvini had formally resigned in order to stand again and as expected, he was re-elected by secret ballot held on October 25, 2026, with 465 votes to 146 for his challenger, Massimo Garavaglia, a Lega senator and former tourism minister. The first move the ‘new’ leader made was to remove his own name from Lega’s logo and insert ‘Italia Federale,’ a formula first used by Bossi in 1994. Apparently, he made this change because the new electoral law requires coalitions to name their candidate for Prime Minister, and that is currently Giorgia Meloni. However, Salvini’s actions in recent times have sparked tensions within Lega; therefore, his decision is aimed more at reuniting the party around him. Removing the leader’s name is also a change in leadership style – one of the tactical dimensions described above – and shows how tactics depend on a populist party’s institutional position.

During the congress, Salvini also said he regretted joining Mario Draghi’s technocratic government during the pandemic. This is revealing, given that, while in that government, he had spoken as if he were in opposition in order to protect his popularity. The party now disowns the very tactic it used in 2021 – further evidence that tactics can change or be abandoned, even though the core of the message remains intact: Lega as the voice of the people against those in power.

What does the congress mean for the 2027 general election campaign? Lega currently stands at around 5 percent in the polls, compared with 8.8 percent in the 2022 general election. The problem is not limited to the North. Even Lega’s Senate group leader, Massimiliano Romeo, has admitted that people are no longer voting for Lega. Moreover, the northern leaders who had been calling for a change in leadership did not present a united front in the vote, and figures such as Luca Zaia, who governed Veneto for 15 years, ended up backing Salvini’s line. It is foreseeable that Lega will seek a new enemy to rally support for future national elections, and the congress offered a first candidate: aid to Ukraine. Salvini has said that Italy ‘cannot keep sending money’ and weapons to Kyiv. The pattern is the same as in 2015, when the party claimed that money was being spent on migrants rather than on Italians; today, the funds in question are those allocated to Ukraine. The enemy changes, but the pattern remains.

Lega’s congress serves as an example of how populist parties react when the crisis does not stem from external factors – the euro, migrants, or the virus – but from within the party itself. Even if the party tries to change elements such as its symbol, the role of its leaders, the constituency it addresses, and its enemies, the core of its message never changes: the honest people versus a distant elite that betrays them. It has learnt to change everything except its own grammar.

(*) Niccolò Capozzi graduated with a degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Florence and obtained a master’s degree in European Studies from Maastricht University, with a thesis on populist communication during crises. He is currently studying for the Joint Master’s in Global Economic Governance and Public Affairs at the LUISS School of Government and CIFE, based in Rome, Berlin, and Nice, and has interests in European politics, populism, political communication, and geopolitics.