Salvini: 'Surprised by Garavaglia, we spoke last Tuesday'

"My phone is always on" and Massimo Garavaglia's statements "surprised me because I called him for more than a quarter of an hour three days ago...": this is what Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini told Antenna 3, replying to Garavaglia who said he had not been able to speak to Salvini.

"I was with the truck drivers on Tuesday, he called me and I couldn't answer. I told him I would call him back and then we spoke for more than a quarter of an hour - he added -. Finding out about his candidacy in the newspapers... I'm not saying with a phone call, but not even a text message... I still answer the phone" but "it's okay, let's move on".

At the League congress it is necessary to vote with the booth open, according to senator Massimo Garavaglia: "Of course, to avoid embarrassing background events, it is in everyone's interest to avoid doubts or annoying and controversial questions" explains Garavaglia to Sky Tg24 entering into the debate on the booth. Its delegates want the booth open and not closed, to avoid being able to take a photograph and demonstrate who they voted for.

Garavaglia then talks about the race to collect the 80 signatures, with a hint also to the fact that Salvini's would be more than the maximum 120 expected: "Did I struggle to collect the signatures? Extremely yes, for a simple reason: they had all been collected... I had to find the few who hadn't been asked to sign, it's mathematically complicated, that's why there is a limit to the number of signatures that can be collected, 120. I don't know how many there were collections... This is another issue but I'm not interested in starting a controversy" adds the Northern League senator.

"Is there a problem with the League's consensus? Yes. Can we recover? Yes, very much, that's why I made this lucid folly of putting myself on the field. Because I have the privilege of being free and I can do what I want, I have no problems. They nominate me, they don't nominate me, amen. I'm 58 years old and I can do a thousand other things. The beauty of it is being free." The objective is "to make the League grow by moving it away from the stereotype that is far right, it doesn't exist - he continues -. Ours is a transversal electorate, the people of VAT numbers, of those who work and those who give work. A pragmatic League, which on social aspects is even further to the left than the left". And then we need "a real federalist push" and finally "a healthy liberal policy, both in terms of rights, such as listening to young people, and in the economy - he concludes - but also at the end of life: let's listen to the CEI on palliative care".