Salvatore Lima

Who was Salvatore Lima?

Salvatore Achille Ettore Lima was an Italian politician from Sicily who was associated with, and murdered by, the Mafia. He is often just referred to as Salvo Lima.

It is not known whether Lima himself was a "made member" of Cosa Nostra. In the final report of the first Italian Antimafia Commission Lima was described as one of the pillars of Mafia power in Palermo.

During his long career with the Christian Democrat party that began in the 1950s, Lima was first allied with the faction of Amintore Fanfani and after 1964 with the one of Giulio Andreotti, seven times prime minister and a member of almost every post-war Italian government. That shift earned him a seat in the national parliament in 1968.

Lima was often referred to as Andreotti's "proconsul" on Sicily. Under Andreotti Lima once held a cabinet post. At the time of his death he was a member of the European Parliament. Lima rarely spoke in public or campaigned during elections, but usually he would manage to gain large support from seemingly nowhere when it came to voting day.