La Lega "nazionale" di Salvini alla conquista elettorale del Meridione

In the last European elections the League became the firstparty in Italy also because, for the first time, it collected a large number ofvotes in the South, exceeding the 20% of votes in the Southern italianregions. In this article we try to evaluate whether that success is temporaryor if it will consolidate over time. In other words, the central question iswhether the vote to the Leauge party in the South of Italy is weak and volatile or it represents the first moment of its establishment also in theseareas of the Country. In details, we try to verify if the success of the Leauge party in the South of Italy can be related to traditional aspects of theparties’ organization, such as the territorial root and the recruitment ofpolitical personnel who obtain in the electoral competition personal voteswhich improve the success of the list. The analysis was conducted throughout macro and micro analysis tools. The analysis of the preference vote distribution highlights the electoral contribution offered by all the candidates to the European Parliament by region and by size of themunicipalities. The description of some emblematic local cases describesthe dynamics through which some local candidates for the EuropeanParliament have contributed to increase the political consensus of theLeague party in the South of Italy.