| Flavio Tosi | |
|---|---|
| Mayor of Verona | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office May 2007 |
|
| Preceded by | Paolo Zanotto |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 18 June 1969 Verona, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Political party | Liga Veneta–Lega Nord |
Flavio Tosi is an Italian Venetist politician. He is a member of Liga Veneta–Lega Nord.
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Having joined Liga Veneta in 1991, he was elected to the Municipal Council of Verona in 1994 at the age of 25. From 1997 to 2003 he was also provincial secretary of Liga Veneta for the Province of Verona. In the meantime, in the 2000 regional election he was elected to the Regional Council of Veneto, where he was floor leader of Liga Veneta for two years.
After being the most voted candidate in the 2005 regional election (more than 28,000 preference votes), he was appointed regional health minister for the Veneto Region. Aged 36, he was one of the rising stars of the new generation of Lega Nord in Veneto, alongside Luca Zaia and Federico Bricolo.
In late 2006 Tosi launched his bid for Mayor of Verona. Initially he was supported only by his party, but then, thanks to the excellent support in opinion polls, he was able to threw behind himself the whole centre-right coalition from National Alliance to the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats, from the Christian Democracy for Autonomies to Forza Italia. On 28 May 2007 he was elected Mayor of Verona by a large margin: 60.8% to 33.9% of the incumbent Paolo Zanotto. Verona is the second largest Italian city ever ruled by Lega Nord, the first one being Milan, ruled by Marco Formentini from 1993 to 1997. He has since been one of the most popular mayors in Italy with approval ratings around 65-75%.[1][2]
On 20 July 2008 Tosi was elected president of Liga Veneta.
On 2 December 2004 Tosi was found guilty of instigation to racism according to the Mancino Law, for having collected signatures against the establishment of new gypsy camps in Verona. Later, on 30 January 2007, the Court of Appeal found Tosi not guilty for the above offence, while at the same time finding him guilty of a minor offence (promoting a hatred campaign). On 13 December 2007 the Court of Cassation cancelled the latter sentence and ruled that the a new appeal must take place.[3] On June 2008 the Court of Cassation publicized the motivations of its December 2007 sentence, stating that Tosi was not guilty of promoting ideas of racial superiority or hatred and that it is acceptable to discriminate against Roma on the grounds that they are thieves, indicating that the Court of Appeals should not consider as crime political initiatives aimed at illegal acts of minority members.[4][5]
On 20 October 2008 the Appeals' Court of Venice upheld the conviction of Tosi to two months of imprisonment with suspended sentence. The Court has given sixty days for filing the motivation. Tosi has announced its intention to appeal to the Court of Cassation.[6] On 11 July 2009 that Court definitively sentence Tosi to two months of imprisonment with suspended sentence.[7] In October 2009 Tosi was sentenced by the Court of Cassation to a sanction of 4,000 euro and to the suspension for three years from holding public rallies.[8]