Lega’s vote leader Luca Sammartino in trouble: who is he?
Explain to me briefly the following article:
At the last regional elections on September 25, 2022, Luca Sammartino garnered 21,011 votes, a significant number although not comparable to the 32,492 preferential votes he received five years earlier as a prominent figure among the Sicilian Renzi supporters. A record still unbeaten at the Parliament.
Sammartino, the current regional Agriculture councilor, is a master of consensus, skilled in both gathering votes and weaving political connections to leverage the electoral outcome. This has been his strategy from the start, when he was elected as a member of the Udc party during Rosario Crocetta’s presidency (2012-2017), and later joined a nascent political movement led by Lino Leanza. He has been the pivotal figure at the Parliament and beyond, constantly increasing his votes and drawing attention from the judiciary.
Despite facing some investigations and controversies during his early political career, including allegations of seeking votes at a clinic where his mother held a prominent position, Sammartino emerged unscathed and saw his career flourish within the centrist circles before moving to the Renzi-led Pd. He further rose to prominence during the last legislature as the key figure assigned by Salvini to build a new leadership class within the League, leading to clashes with the Region’s President, Nello Musumeci.
The peak of the allies’ confrontation came when Musumeci accused Sammartino of orchestrating a “betrayal” during a parliamentary session where the majority crumbled due to internal turmoil. Musumeci’s words marked the definitive rupture between the two prominent figures from Etna.
Although Sammartino was the subject of several investigations, the most serious of which resulted in a 2021 trial for alleged electoral corruption, he has yet to face any convictions, allowing him to remain politically unscathed and emerge as a key figure within the right-wing coalition. He has been appointed Vice President of the Region and head of the Agriculture department, a politically influential role second only to Health.
Sammartino also serves as the bridge between the government and Parliament, a position that has earned him adversaries within the Parliament for his perceived ruthless manoeuvres. However, nothing has impeded Sammartino’s political ascent in these first two years of the legislature.
He recently won an internal battle within the League by ousting the regional secretary Annalisa Tardino, who had formed an alliance with rival Raffaele Lombardo. Sammartino successfully pushed the Mpa party out of the League and secured a leadership change, with Messina native Nino Germanà poised to take over soon, strengthening his position within the party. He was also attempting to bring Totò Cuffaro and his DC party into the League’s orbit, holding negotiations that could have significant implications on the upcoming European elections.
These talks were ongoing, with the aim of including a female Christian democrat in the European elections list. Sammartino discussed this with his close allies upon returning from Verona, where he had hosted the Sicily stand at Vinitaly. This was his last public appearance before a potential legal storm that could jeopardize his position ahead of the European elections.
Il ras del voto della Lega finito nei guai, chi è Luca Sammartino
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