by Stefania Piazzo – With the federal president but above all president of the Editoriale Nord which edited Padania at the time, Stefano Stefani, it would be hypocritical to say that it has always been roses and flowers. We often told ourselves to go to hell. There was almost always a “fair amount of friction” in each of their respective roles. It was part of the game. Although, taking away certain clothes, in the end there was mutual respect. We mutually recognized each other’s intelligence. Like when you get angry because you know that your counterpart is anything but stupid, on the contrary, but he has something else in mind. We made peace then we got angry. Ah, Stefano…
He cared about the media. Padania was difficult to navigate in the perilous seas of party publishing, and Stefani did not accept that it could have ups and downs. In his communication he used that harsh way of doing things which could lead to heated, strong, sanguine dialectics with us employees. We were on a roller coaster. But he had never thought of closing the newspaper. Which he had founded with Bossi.
In unsuspecting times, he had raised an issue, expressing doubts about some colleagues, so to speak, of the Salvinian and Maronian wings (some in the Giovani Padani of the time). The architects, several of them, of the climb. Of climbing. Some then promoted to Parliament. For great merits, obviously. On this point it must be acknowledged that Stefani was not wrong in believing that either you write a newspaper or work in the party. And that a card is not a policy that protects against hail at work. They were truly hot years, and seen in perspective, perhaps he knew more things than us.
At Christmas, this last Christmas, I called him to wish him a happy birthday. But I hadn’t heard it in a lifetime.
I have a particular, indelible memory of him. On the eve of September 15, 1996, he summoned us employees of the then weekly Lega Nord and all the officials of the party in Via Bellerio to the ground floor, in the rooms above Radio Padania. We had collected together a decent nest egg to give Umberto Bossi a birthday present. Stefani had decided it was a nice reflex camera. Bossi didn’t have one yet. He handed it to her in front of his entire secretary. Then with Bossi he illustrated to us how the demonstration on the Po would be held.
I want to remember him like this, Stefani, with that simple gift, in the times of genuine politics, and in his last words on the phone. “I was pleased to hear you”.
Fate in politics, however, never surprises. Today Giancarlo Pagliarini wrote this post. Which I propose again.
Roberto Ronchi was in charge of the political secretariat of via Arbe first and then of via Bellerio, when via Bellerio was teeming with ideas. He was elected, for those who today in the Salvini Premier do not know who Ronchi was, nor have ever asked themselves the problem of knowing, in the Chamber. He announced that he had to accept the candidacy in the basement of the then headquarters in Via Arbe, with embarrassment, in one of the usual plenary meetings with the Boss. Ronchi has been the custodian of the orthodoxy of the political line for years. He looked at everything. His word was the last.
Although they have different roles and missions, Stefani and Ronchi belong to that generation that lived through the League, which ended with the resignation of Umberto Bossi in 2012. But they are more alive than others that we will find in some ballot papers on the 8th and June 9th.
Opening image taken from Stefano Stefani’s Facebook page, Pontida 2011
