Third term, regional and beyond: why the center resists in the territories (but is missing from the parties)

In the contemporary Italian political landscape, attempts to redefine the identity of the so-called “center” are multiplying. This is a large but elusive electoral area that is looked at with growing interest at times when the thrust of the poles is exhausted or the aggregation capacity of traditional parties is weakened. However, what emerges forcefully from all the most recent surveys is that over a third of the electorate today no longer goes to the polls. This is the most significant data on the crisis of representation, and it concerns in particular an active and aware segment of the population, which does not identify with any of the existing alignments, but does not for this reason take refuge in anti-politics.

This silent portion of the country is often located in the social and economic heart of Italy: professionals, entrepreneurs, administrators, intermediate bodies, citizens engaged in the territories, bearers of values ​​that refer to the culture of responsibility, institutional proximity, the sobriety of good administration. It is a universe that we could define as a "widespread civic center", and which today finds its most concrete representation not in the parties, but in the territories.

In this sense , regional presidents represent a privileged observation point . Their institutional figure has evolved well beyond the technical or administrative role: they have become permanent interlocutors of central governments, actors in strategic planning, and – above all – civic points of reference for millions of citizens, who recognize them as guarantors of stability, autonomy and capacity for government.

In many Italian realities, governors have been able to interpret a political model based on three coherent pillars: solidarity, understood as care for social ties and local fragilities; federalism, in its modern, responsible declination, capable of generating efficiency and decision-making proximity; public responsibility, as a sober and rigorous style in the relationship between institutions and citizens. These elements do not make up an abstract theory, but represent a recognized, measurable and largely transversal political practice compared to the current alignments.

The ongoing discussion on issues such as the limit to the third consecutive term should also be read in this light. Beyond the normative judgment or individual positions, the point that deserves attention is the quality of local representation that is generated today by these institutional figures. The consensus that consolidates over time around some regional presidents - and to a lesser extent also mayors of metropolitan cities - is not the result of personalistic logic, but of a substantial recognition of competence, reliability and capacity for territorial vision.

This dynamic offers important insights for political science reflection. In particular, it highlights the crisis of vertical representation – parties, coalitions, national leadership – and the contextual strengthening of horizontal representation, based on the territory, on direct trust, on the effectiveness of local public policies. It is in this space that a new form of center could emerge, not built on paper, but recognized in administrative and civil practice.

A center that is not defined by opposition to ideological poles, but by function: that of mediating, organizing, building. Which is not limited to its parliamentary position, but is expressed in the ability to read complexity, activate resources, coordinate networks. A center that is born from the values ​​of institutional balance, administrative sobriety, social cohesion, responsible autonomy, and which for this very reason has remained without an organic political representation until now.

The question that emerges, therefore, is whether it is not time to rethink the very idea of ​​the center, in light of the new institutional and social balances . Whether it is not more useful to look in the territories - and not in laboratory formulas - for the embryo of a new political culture, capable of reuniting public efficiency, civil participation and national vision.

It is not a question of imagining an automatic translation of regional presidents into national political figures. It is rather a question of recognizing that in those local experiences we find today the raw material for an authentic regeneration of the moderate field, based not on tactical opportunity, but on an ethical, institutional and community framework consistent with the needs of a contemporary democracy.

Perhaps the center that politics has been looking for for a long time already exists: it is not yet a party, but it is already a political fact. It is territorial, civil, coherent. And it is just waiting to be recognized for what it really is.

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