Salvini reconfirmed as leader of the Lega, relaunches call to halt arms shipments to Kyiv

Matteo Salvini remains at the helm of the Lega. The party congress reconfirmed him as secretary with 465 votes, while challenger Massimo Garavaglia stopped at 146 preferences. The result closes a congressional phase that had seen Garavaglia present himself as an internal alternative to Salvini’s leadership, without managing to significantly undermine his support among delegates.

In his address to the congress, Salvini reiterated his call to halt arms shipments to Ukraine, returning to an issue that the Lega secretary has repeatedly raised in recent months, in contrast with the Atlanticist line of other government partners. The reconfirmation allows him to put forward this position again with the weight of a newly renewed party leadership, at a time when the debate over military support for Kyiv remains open among the majority forces.

The atmosphere of the congress was also marked by an episode linked to the handling of the press during proceedings. Salvini himself claimed responsibility for the decision to keep journalists out of some phases of the event:

“I asked for journalists to be kept out, they are servants” — Matteo Salvini, secretary of the Lega

The episode took place within a congress that nonetheless delivered a wide and clear margin of votes among delegates, a result that consolidates Salvini’s position within the party precisely as the governing majority discusses the most delicate dossiers of the autumn agenda, starting with foreign policy toward Moscow and Kyiv.

The gap between the 465 votes won by Salvini and the 146 that went to Garavaglia remains, for now, the most up-to-date political indicator of the state of internal relations within the Lega and of the weight of the factions that identify with the two congressional camps.