The portrait of the centre-right candidate in the next elections, from the fight against covid to sporting passions
Attilio Fontana was born in Varese on 28 March 1952. He is an Italian politician, member of the League, president of the Lombardy Region since 26 March 2018. He began his political career with the League: from 7 May 1995 to 13 June 1999 he held the office of mayor of the municipality of Induno Olona. He ran for the regional elections in Lombardy in 2000: he was elected councilor with 5,194 preferences and then became president of the regional council. In the following regional elections in 2005 in Lombardy he was re-elected councilor and then re-elected president of the regional council, positions he held until July 2006. That year he ran for mayor of his city, Varese, and was elected in the first round with 57.8 % of votes. An office that he was reconfirmed in the ballot in May 2011 with 53.89% of the votes. He was president of ANCI Lombardia, being replaced in office by Roberto Scanagatti, then mayor of Monza.
The election as president of the Region of 2018
In 2018, after Maroni renounced a second candidacy, he ran for President of Lombardy. From that electoral campaign, a sentence of his declared on the microphones of Radio Padania Libera went viral: “We cannot accept all the immigrants who arrive: we must decide whether our ethnic group, our white race, our society must continue to exist or must be delete”. After the controversy arising from the sentence, he declares, apologizing, that it was a slip of the tongue and an expressive error.
Fontana won the elections with 49.75% of the votes against 29.09% of the centre-left candidate, the mayor of Bergamo Giorgio Gori, and 17.36% of the candidate of the 5 Star Movement Dario Violi. On the following 26 March he officially took office as the new president of the Lombardy Region.
As President of Lombardy, he has not always aligned perfectly with the party line. In September 2020, a few weeks after the constitutional referendum on the cut in the number of parliamentarians linked to the reform initiated by the Conte I government led by the League together with the 5 Star Movement and concluded by the Conte II government led by the coalition between M5S and the Democratic Party, Fontana announces the his vote against, in dissidence with the official line of the League, lined up for the “Yes”.
In 2020 he is one of the main political protagonists in the fight against the spread of the coronavirus in Italy, which sees the main outbreak in his region, Lombardy.
Studies and career as a lawyer
Graduated from the Ernesto Cairoli classical high school in his hometown in 1970, he graduated in law in 1975 from the University of Milan. Since 1980 he has owned a law firm in Varese, now managed by his eldest daughter Maria Cristina. In 2007 he was the lawyer of Andrea Mascetti, who had Michele Santoro convicted of defamation.
First married to Laura Castelli, he remarried to Roberta Dini, daughter of the founder of “Paul & Shark”. He has three children: Maria Cristina (born in 1980, also a lawyer), Giovanni (born in 2000) and Marzia (born in 2002). He is a golf enthusiast, a fan of AC Milan and Varese basketball.
Source-tg24.sky.it