This article is within the EU, Italy, Turin series.

The title might be cryptic for many- both in Italy and abroad- also if I actually already wrote a bit about the Republic of Cospaia.

The Republic of Cospaia is something that I read about by chance during one of my routine rummaging through libraries to find inspiration and challenges to keep up in shape my cultural and organizational change skills.

And to resurrect experience from previous missions- my business memory works as a "memory palace": provide a "crib", and dots start connecting backward.

What was that republic? A mapping mistake- two nearby powers had to set a border, and basically a river parted but retained the same name on both the two halves.

Hence, each one of the neighboring powers set its own border- linked to the river name.

So, unwillingly set an enclave in-between them: which lasted few centuries (really: mid-XV century to Napoleon and his aftermath).

It is a simile that will use both for Italy and its magmatic political environment- where a week can bring about as many twists and turns as a year elsewhere.

Anyway, the world is getting used to that approach, with President Trump actually being even faster in his own turnarounds.

And also Canada's Prime Minister was reporting heading on the path of associated membership with the European Union: the final nail in the coffin of NAFTA, that was heralded at the dawn of a new era- and, actually, the current trade tariffs-related woes of even USA factories and towns show that the integration had gone deeper than many assumed.

We were used to the 1950s-1970s "regime changing"- but outside Europe: Greenland and other war noises changed all that.

After the new announce on Ireland reunification, pushing for "unbundling UK" could actually become functional to weakening the economic and nuclear deterrent potential of Europe- where just recently Finland was the 10th Member State announcing that will join the proposed French "umbrella".

Why unbundling UK could be functional to President Trump initiatives against Greenland etc? Because actually France and UK have already agreements (including on maintenance) and routinely join force, as shown not just in Suez decades ago, but also in Libya and then on Ukraine, and next would be the Commonwealth: would a Commonwealth make sense if the United Kingdom were to be reduced to England?

So, the paradox is that our longest-term ally is actually working to weaken the European Union cohesion at the time when Russia is getting increasingly assertive.

How can be read the new Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales initiative for referenda is yet to be seen- but reminds that in WWII keeping up UK was also useful to have a "logistical base" in Europe.

Therefore, also that side of the geopolitical scenario is getting increasingly closer to home- and will out of necessity influence the string of local elections that already started in 2026, and will continue in 2027.

This article is an introduction to a new series that will, once in a while, with an acceleration around elections, contain my commentary.

Which elections? Certainly locally in my birthplace (Turin) and at the national level (Italy), but maybe there will be time to integrate with commentary within the parallel multi-part series that called "The Future of Europe" and started in August 2026.

As I wrote a week ago on Facebook, but shared before with others:



Over the last week, I got my confirmation: the "playing chicken" eventually resulted in the leader of the Partito Democratico announcing the obvious that nobody dared to utter- elections as soon as possible.

Of course, the leader of the government said just the opposite, after tinkering with both options.

The reason is what I shared in that post on Facebook: neither coalition is steady enough to be able to sustain twists-and-turns that could result from the aftermath of the mid-term elections in the USA, as well as a whole year of continuously aggressive posturing from the White House and the Kremlin.

Why? Because both exogenous forces would require a re-prioritization, something that you usually want to lead, not to follow, during an election campaign.

The center-left coalition is proposing the usual elements that were within its proposals at the previous national elections, but the leader of Partito Democratico is frankly recycling mottos that brought the current leader of the center-right to the government- only, of course, injecting her own side keywords.

The center-right coalition has the dual issue of the internal re-assessment of both Forza Italia and Northern League, plus a new competitor.

So, both coalitions could probably polish a public position for their own coalition to show unity about.

But would it survive if there were pressure to shift resources and alliances to countermand external pressures for a whole year?

Doubtful. From a bipartisan perspective, I think that would be better for Italy to have a government in place as soon as possible, than a 1-year-long campaign, to enable setting at least the internal dust, and then build a national posture.

As would not be surprised if, in one year or so, we actually were to have also the opposition support positions of the government- does not matter who wins the elections, and does not matter what are the contents of the political platform presented to the voters: what matters is that we cannot cocoon in our own national borders.

Quarreling when there are external pressures is just risking to convert a country whose industrial basis is weakened, depends on external resources to make what is left keep running, needs to restart the economic and social fabric (this article on that subject was read over 50,000 times since March 2018), relies on exports and transformation, and apparently lost the recent opportunity of the PNRR / NextGenerationEU...

... converting into the weak link in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

Yes, will keep adding material on, with, about AI- but will always keep disclosing which is which: and, within the scope of this article series, plan to release, once an official election date is announced, a "political news observer" that will share on a daily basis.

Therefore, while trying to keep this article short, a must is to share again at the end where I do (politically) stand, and why you can rest assured that, while will not disclose my vote earlier than after the ballots will be officially closed, my reporting and commentary will be bipartisan.

Again, if you read my posts around the time of local, national, European elections since 2012- those whose material is still available on this website- from a a mini-book on political advocacy, to articles about the 2016, 2019, 2022, 2024 local, nationals, European elections, you already know more than a bit.

Just consider this new series a continuation- and this introduction as, probably, the longest article in the series.

Few sections:
_ A a tribal unification
_ B Shifting grounds: Second (and third?) Republic
_ C The Cospaia of Italian politics enters the arena?
_ D Where do I stand



A a tribal unification

The feasibility of the unification of Italy in 1861 was a consequence of a larger set of power plays around Europe at the time.

Frankly, we are more unified while abroad than when we are in Italy, we Italians.

An old Italian definition is the country of the bell towers ("il paese dei campanili"- this article published by La Repubblica newspaper nine years ago might help).

As you probably know, instead I prefer to talk about the "tribal" side of Italy.

And our endemic organized crime is, in my view and long-term evidence-based observation, a culture has permeated the whole Italian State- both the State apparatuses and the private organizations.

I could go back in time a long-while, but, frankly, it is enough to go as far as when moved abroad in 1997.

Whenever was contacted or called back in Italy for missions that were just a "recall and retain", even before the forced return in 2012, I saw both in each other European country where I either lived or worked the difference, and how that culture is a structural "cultural export".

Shared in the past jokes from the early 1990s from my friends abroad, e.g. while visiting a small village nearby Stuttgart- a "tour" to show me a restaurant that had no customers and whose Italian owner was strolling around in a fancy car, long before Duisburg made that visible on mass-media in Germany.

We keep reading titles about millions in organized crime-related seized assets, while statistics talk about 10% or more of GDP as the size "informal economy".

Not necessarily organize-crime (even gentrified) linked: but in a country where information blends with tribal allegiance, anybody working within the informal economy, no matter to what degree, becomes a potential target of blackmailing and of requests to "bend" rules if and when needed.

Each time you see the unbundling of an approval into multiple steps, you have to consider that, as reported in the early 1990s even on weekly magazines, but after read about it in more recent years, each approval step is a potential source of revenue for some- a weekly magazine called it "il paese delle micro-mazzette" (the country of the micro-bribes).

It might be annoying, but in a tribal culture with a significant organized crime presence creates a side-effect: those who need to know, know who is doing what- and that could be useful when need to "extract value"- be an acceleration of bureaucracy, or its delaying.

The sad truth is: only mafiosi can choose to gentrify themselves, with their "legal economy" accomplices, and find more interesting to let the legal economy and rule of law turn into the ordinary- once their own main source of revenue becomes the legal economy.

But wrote that already while I was living in Brussels, and saw how routine was to see some elements of that also in Italian restaurants, pizzerias, etc there, as I had seen and been told also previously in London- including by seeing curiously how Belgian police posted outside them to observe the coming and going, and unusually posh waiters in not-so-posh places.

Until things do change, Italy will be the country where legal shortcuts and mob-style behavioral patterns are the ordinary, not the extraordinary: as each and every shortcut generates an access point for further forms and shapes of twisting rules to protect tribal interests- not just for organized crime, but for any tribal concern.

Look just at how often in the past long-running mafiosi in hiding were searched for around the world- only to then, when was time to retire, find them nearby home.

Everything else, evidence-based, is properly shown within books on the "economic side" of organized crime in Italy since the 1990s: its integration in the economy across its tribal system, as well as its expansion- a "success story" in pure economic trends not matched by any other "industry" in Italy.

We have, in Italy, both "vertical" tribes whose cohesion is across a specific domain, and "horizontal" tribes, whose cohesion is within a specific territory- and, in some cases, to add further entertainment, we Italians can belong to both horizontal and vertical tribes.

Allegiance is associated to convenience, including by not really asking and questioning what is the background of your tribe members.

Anyway, you can read in past articles about some ways that organized crime spread across the economy- sometimes, even opening-and-closing fast activities that pay their suppliers is useful- to have those suppliers gradually become larger yet completely legal, profitable, and being able to join tenders for major work: gentrification bypassing money laundering and using instead business development.

Again: was a pattern that German newspapers already reported in Eastern Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, e.g. when a "financier" with a large amount of cash wanted to acquire what the Treuhandanstalt could not sell: all that was needed to get into retail and logistics, traditional businesses for some of our organized crime recycling drug sales proceeds, and then, courtesy of being cash-based, inject liquidity to push competition out.

Italian media are routinely publishing articles about the influence of Russia or AI on elections- but forget cash-based or service-provision influence- and the whole concept of "for future benefit" alliances.

So, an old cartoon from Bruno Bozzetto that you can see online joked about our concept of "winning the elections".

And, in many parts, still holds true.



B Shifting grounds: Second (and third?) Republic

The title of this section is something that discussed in past articles, but worth summarizing to contextualize this article series.

In what we call the "First Republic" (late 1940s to roughly early 1990s), we were used to a couple of main political parties, and a handful of smaller ones- but, basically, only the Christian Democrats were part of or leading each government- the Communist Party was the permanent opposition.

From the 1970s, when also the regional governments started being elected directly by voters (as well as European Parliament representatives), the Communist party turned into a (first local, then national) government party.

Seen from outside, sometimes looked as a transformation akin to Orwell's "Animal Farm"- or, if you prefer, you can look at Sartre's "Mains Sales".

In the early 1990s there was a major scandal that reshuffled Italian politics: Henry Kissinger was previously quoted saying about Italy and Japan that, despite all their continuous falling and creating of government, were the steadier of allies, because always the same people came back to power, only shuffling chairs.

At least, that did not representing the Italian political reality, after the "Mani Pulite" (clean hands) corruption scandal.

There were few new political parties- one that had started years before, the Northern League, and one that was created by Silvio Berlusconi, plus eventually an unlocking of the votes of the party that traditionally represented a kind of continuity with the Mussolini period.

The latter changes few times, until became the political party of the current head of the Government, Fratelli d'Italia.

Actually, there is a curious element: while first-line politicians of both the two previously leading parties were sidelined, what I call the second line of the Christian Democrats and party bureaucrats of the Communist Party blended into various names and mix-and-match, until they founded the Partito Democratico.

Are you already lost? Do not worry- we dance faster than whirling Dervishes.

No wonder that, if you look at the political party allegiance of those elected and follow through a single term, you will meet, after the early 1990s, so many twists and turns.

Despite all the pretense that we have just two coalitions, centre-left and centre-right, we actually had sometimes that on the election day, and then dozens of small parties in Parliament.

Anyway, the aim of this introductory article is not to summarize Italian political history- not even just since the 1990s.

The aim is, for occasional non-Italian readers, to have a grasp of how things in Italian politics are more nuanced that yin and yang: we have a continuously changing of a balance of white and shades of gray.

Also if each coalition tries to represent the other side as a "monolith", it has not been so for decades.

For example, the leader of a political party that currently is routinely (figuratively) crossing swords for the leadership of the center-left coalition with the secretary of the Partito Democratico, just in the previous legislature was first head of a government with a party currently within the center-right coalition, and then, again, head of the next government- this time with the Partito Democratico.

Hence, the reason why I am starting now: geopolitical changes imply that, also if we had two steady and cohesive coalitions, there would be plenty of uncertainties in 2027- waiting until the natural end of the term (autumn) would mean exposing both coalitions to the need to continuously adjust and adapt.

With coalitions that are stitched together, such a continuous stream of twists-and-turns could inspire some to do attempts as in the previous term- blending parts of different coalitions.

And, frankly, since the 1990s routinely the Northern League, whatever its temporary leader, has been without peers in switching coalitions.

A key element of the Second Republic is that really started with a personality cult (Silvio Berlusconi), but at least he was paying for his own political party and using his own companies' managers to promote it.

Eventually, almost all the political parties, like it or not, "elected" to identify with a leader (see e.g. this 2017 article that has been read over 45,000 times)- but, frankly, more than a leader, was a primadonna (woman or man does not matter) that replaced a political motivation with a loyalty cult.

And, accordingly, each "cult" started by surrounding with loyalists and sidelining previous managers and cadres, and continuously monitoring to avoid anybody who could cast a shadow or build an alternative within the same party.

Yes, in Italy, often since 2012 to me seemed as we had shifted from political parties whose glue was a platform, to political parties built around a temporary leader.

The vagaries of the constant stream of Italian electoral law reforms just reinforced this approach, by generating a de-facto "centralized" definition of candidates and pre-selecting those who could be elected.

During the First Republic, I remember since 1983 (when I was 18 and, in my first election, actually actively worked on the backoffice of a campaign recycling what I had learned and observed in campaigns that saw my parents be part of) that having "secure seats" was commonplace in Italy- for both the leading political parties.

So, some high-ranking or highly visible politicians were routinely candidates in those seats, while for some political parties some seats were instead almost a personal satrapy.

In the Second Republic, that approach went on steroids- as if voters' choice did not matter, and also, due to the weakening of political parties, to avoid local potentates as was during the First Republic: the leader and the "magic circle" as the king maker.

With curious results: a candidate that has been an eternal potential President of the Republic, a former Christian Democrat, was literally imposed on the "red" Bologna as Partito Democratico candidate, costing many votes and, soon after being elected, becoming an independent.

At the same time, that system did actually still result in creating local personal fiefdoms- such as the one enjoyed in Campania from a key member of the Partito Democratico.

The obsession of imposing candidates, considering the degree of megalomania that was enabled by the electoral system, routinely shifted toward increasing another national habit.

As allegiance is tribal, and tribes can also become fluid by blending with the interests of other tribes, when needed or decided by the leader.

Hence, in our Second Republic, routinely leaders, even before getting elected to higher office, while holding just party offices, are more than inclined to surround themselves by those agreeing (that is a mild definition) with them.

Were not so repetitive, would be interesting to have a telenovela about Italian politics: less blood, but would be on the level of Game of Thrones.

Already in 2018 wrote about the potential shift toward a Third Republic and, as routinely happens in Italy, what you write as a joke comes back as a reality: funny to see how Amato, a politician with deep roots in Italian politics also in the First Republic, despite being part of the Partito Democratico, again was "bridging" in an event I attended with Pannella and Di Pietro.

Back then (in Italian) wrote about two potential political blocs, Lega + Fratelli d'Italia and M5S + PD.

And discussed a potential government M5S+Lega: which was what actually happened as soon as the elections dust settled (only to be then followed by a government M5S+PD).

I wrote back then that a government whose only purpose would be to have a new electoral law would have been a waste.

We are creative, and that government, instead of focusing on change, focused on something else- floating, as usual, as did the following one.

The M5S+PD government that started in September 2019 and ended in February 2021 (followed then by a government "all parties in"- except Fratelli d'Italia) had to cope with the unexpected- the COVID crisis, but also the beginning of NextGenerationEU.

Too early to say if the NextGenerationEU and its Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR in Italian) 200+ bln EUR achieved and at which level the expected impact (including reforms).

As, in Italy, also when reforms become laws, it has been a Second Republic tradition that implementation is something else: better to make yet another reform.

Frankly, Second or Third Republic is a matter of definitions: we are still in the aftermath of the First Republic.

At the end of the First Republic, the Northern League was a political novelty, while at the beginning of the Second Republic Forza Italia was the political novelty.

Then we had the "rottamatori" of both Cinquestelle and Matteo Renzi (as leader of Partito Democratico but with a past in Christian Democrats), and also the tenure of Matteo Salvini.

Why those three in a single phrase? Because all of them actually, in different elections, went well beyond 30% of the vote- and then quickly proceeded, out of internal or imported hubris, to squander it- all shifting to single digit entities: some permanently, some temporarily.

As, anyway, for a leader surrounded by loyalists, it is easier in Italian politics to crash-land a 30%+ political party into a single digit and then rebuild on that, than trying to control and steer all the different souls into a new direction.

Another curious element: notably the Partito Democratico, and recently also the Northern League, is not so uncommon to have some outsiders elected with a significant vote appealing to loyalists, and then... create a new personal political party carrying along part of the elected Members of Parliament of the party that put them on the ballot.

And now, we have another new "political novelty".



C The Cospaia of Italian politics enters the arena?

In Italy, we always talk about a mythical "center" of the political spectrum- and then say that it is part of both the left and the right coalition.

It is actually quite dynamic- mainly, because most of those covering that area are single-digit political parties that try to project power beyond their actual political weight (i.e. mainly number of seats in Parliament).

Also the Cinquestelle is generating some novelty- as its founder, Beppe Grillo, is reportedly looking to create a new political party on the left

The Cinquestelle current leader was actually "imported" by choice of the founder, and then the founder was ousted.

If you look at political party of the center, you will find that e.g. both Calenda and Renzi before were within the Partito Democratico.

The newer kid on the block is the political party founded by a retired General, Vannacci.

Over the week-end, visited the Turin auto expo- and, within the design section, found two sport cars that well represent a concept, one from 2017 in red, the other from 2024 in black, both with a highly visible X on top and the writing about the 10th legion "ballistic".

In Italian politics in 2017, there was space for a new political entity on the left, while in 2024 we had space for a new political entity on the right, riding the usual horses of the new right (remigration, anti-woke, etc).

So, for somebody with deep knowledge in strategic studies (the General- look at his curriculum), it was a no brainer to carve that "niche"- and focus his campaign on visibility, starting with a controversial book, and extending on that.

Each time there is some silence, suddenly yet another provocation that media cannot stop talking about: free advertisement.

He started doing what military logistics teaches- building presence in the territory after that book, and the announcing the new political party after being elected to the European Parliament by the Northern League- useful to have a revenue stream supporting at least the shared communication side, while building locally support for the new political entity.

Initially, many commentators said that he would not get 2%.

I disagreed after looking at his first steps that pointed to a roadmap, not just "blips" on media.

Barely a year later, he is credited with a potential 10%.

While many see him as extreme right, and some of his messages are definitely extreme right, he is actually doing what the Northern League, Forza Italia, Italia dei Valori with Di Pietro, M5S did in the past: attracting the "votes of discontent".

Now, it is curious how in Italy many commentators apparently ignore the increasingly large pool of non-voters, in a country where non-voters often were below 10%.

So, the talk is which party will lose votes toward the new political party.

Forgetting that actually what could happen is that voters of traditional parties, finding just "personal" political parties too busy with internal fights for leadership to make a proposition to voters, might actually shift toward non-vote (as I did few years ago- voting only in local and regional and European Parliament elections), and non-voters could actually provide significant fuel to the new political party.

Hence, my definition of the new political party as the Cospaia of Italian politics: quietly settling in the middle of all the political powers, but potentially dealing with parts of both- not structurally, but, as Cospaia did "transactionally", e.g. voting in Parliament with either side on specific issues.

Years ago, the founder of M5S said, after the significant first successes in terms of votes, warning those elected, that if they failed the next one in Italy would be something similar to the "Golden Dawn" in Greece.

Frankly, while some commentators wrote that the new political party that the founder of M5S is against the current leadership of M5S, I see it more as a return to his origins, as there is now space for a new political party also on the left.

Why? Because the political party that identifies itself as "left" AVS (green-left alliance) frankly sounds so often a party of bureaucrats, that I started years ago nicknaming it "Abbiamo Voglia di Sedie"- anything for a seat at the table.

While the traditional core of the center-left, Partito Democratico, over the last few years was routinely behaving as the old Christian Democratic party, with internal "correnti" playing king making or posturing to be within the magic circle of the incumbent secretary, and so many flip-flops that one can be excuses of having lost track of who each side is supporting within the party.

As for M5S, since inception really tried to be as was the Northern League at the beginning- covering from the left to right: I like to remember to my Italian contacts how, decades ago, within the Regional council, once newspapers reported that some messages passed back-and-forth included pro-Fidel Castro messages.

While now under the incumbent secretary Salvini the Northern League is often considered the right-most side of the Government, hence why Vannacci was invited to become a candidate.

With few exceptions, frankly, the General showed the value of his training on strategy applied to "political logistics" more than many formally professional politicians who instead got lost in "office quarrels" akin to what decades ago saw when two managers quarreled because the new desks assigned to them had a different number of drawers...

As wrote long ago about some other elections: it is not about the General to win, but about the others to fail to attract voters and present him as an alternative built on limited, blunt messages, while the others still hint at potential platforms with 100 points (to satisfy each "corrente" within the party or coalition), or converge on the same bland, gray messages that they used before, but then never implemented.



D Where do I stand

As shared in previous articles, including those on elections that published since 2012 and linked above, I did not change my mind.

I am still bipartisan, traditionally voting for the center-left, but on local and regional and European Parliament elections look at candidates.

A test on the website of the Einaudi foundation (Einaudi was a President of the Italian Republic) was classified as "liberal on the left".

As shared since the late 1980s with colleagues, when they asked why I read both Il Sole 24 Ore and Il Manifesto (the latter stopped after the journalists mix changed)...

... I might not be convinced that a free-market economy works but, as this is the system that we have, let's make it work.

This simple assertion generates a long list of preferences- that will skip here.

Instead, let's share some other elements closer to this article series.

In 1983 voted at the lower Chamber for Democrazia Proletaria, the political party I was campaigning for.

Whenever I had to cast a ballot for the Senate, I voted for one of the various incarnations of the former Communist Party- PDS, Partito Democratico, etc.

For the lower Chamber, sometimes voted for other parties within the center-left coalition and, while in Brussels, once voted for the Di Pietro party as voter from abroad, while registered for local elections in Belgium, and voted for a political party whose platform was covering both FR and NL speakers.

Since 2012, I kept the same approach: somebody in the center-left at the lower Chamber, Partito Democratico for the Senate.

In 2016, disappointed with the political campaign of the incumbent Mayor of Turin Fassino (as the same party has been there for decades), voted at the first round for the candidate of M5S Appendino, hoping that the message from myself and others would be received, and then just for loyalty Fassino in the second round- but the campaign frankly was a lost cause, as in the second round the Partito Democratico made a quixotic campaign.

Since then, voted only in local, regional, European Parliament elections- as the Partito Democratico, in my view, did not present candidates, but seat occupiers decided by the party.

In the last two regional elections, shifted from Partito Democratico to the current incumbent Cirio- as the other coalition frankly again represented more of the same from somebody who kept the power for two decades (as an aggregated) and in my view had turned into a political bureaucracy that selects candidates to prize seniority and loyalty to the leader, not built around a platform.

I will skip other details etc- but, frankly, I am and have been bipartisan since inception.

And, while what I saw and "received" (back-stabbing routine from Rome as well as Turin and Milan) since the late 1990s from Turin and Italy (Rome included) makes me less than confident in the potential for change, I will keep being an observer and commentator: as I wrote above, "hic sunt mafiosi"- in their mindset.

As I wrote at 14: I dislike revolutionaries, as they change the musicians but there is no time to learn a new music.

And, in Italy as well as in Turin, we had few rounds of wannabe revolutionaries that eventually instead were just more of the same.

But will stop making proposals locally and in Italy: at best, are misused or reused when the context had already changed- in change, timing is linked to context, not to theory.

What can be positive today, in a different context might actually be detrimental- something that opportunists who "store proposals" to resurrect them when a tribal friend potentially able to deliver appears... still do not understand.

If you do not get the difference- you are a bureaucrat looking for continuity, not an agent of change.

Anyway, who knows, might be pleasantly surprised by what external pressure will force our political parties to find inside themselves to propose real change.

The year 1861 was long ago: time to quit being the Cospaia of Europe...

For now, stay tuned!