Cambiamo! | |
|---|---|
 | |
| President | Giovanni Toti |
| Founded | 7 August 2019 (2019-08-07) |
| Dissolved | 28 April 2022 (2022-04-28) (de facto) |
| Split from | Forza Italia |
| Merged into | Italy in the Centre |
| Headquarters | Piazza Madama 9, Rome |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-right |
| National affiliation | Centre-right coalition |
| Colours | Orange Blue |
| Website | |
| cambiamo | |
Cambiamo! (lit. 'Let's Change!', also stylized asC!)[1] was acentre-rightpolitical party in Italy, led byGiovanni Toti.
In June 2019, after theEuropean Parliament election,Silvio Berlusconi appointedGiovanni Toti,president ofLiguria, andMara Carfagna, a former minister, national coordinators ofForza Italia (FI), with the goal of reforming and relaunching the party.[2] However, after a few weeks, Toti left the party in opposition to Berlusconi,[3] who had not endorsed Toti's proposal for open primaries,[4][5][6] and launchedCambiamo!.[7][8] The reasons of the split were FI's lack of internal democracy and lack of clarity on the alliance with theLeague and theBrothers of Italy (FdI) at country-level, which he definitely supported.[9][10][11]
In September four deputies (Stefano Benigni, Manuela Gagliardi, Claudio Pedrazzini andAlessandro Sorte) officially left FI in order to join C![12] Along with a fifth deputy who had earlier left FI (Giorgio Silli), they renamed the "Dream Italy–10 Times Better" sub-group within theMixed Group as "Cambiamo!–10 Times Better".[13] Additionally, four senators (Massimo Vittorio Berutti,Gaetano Quagliariello,Paolo Romani and Luigi Vitali),[14][15] as well as several regional councillors fromLombardy (including Romani's son) andLazio[16][17][18] followed suit.
In the2020 Emilia-Romagna regional election C! ran in a joint list withThe People of the Family, gaining 0.3% of the vote.[19] In the2020 Ligurian regional election party leader Toti was re-elected president with 56.1% of the vote, while C! (full name:Cambiamo con Toti Presidente) gained 22.6% of the vote.[20] In the2020 Tuscan regional election the party obtained 1.0% of the vote and no seats.[21]
Despite its beginnings, by the end of 2020 C! became a proponent of a more moderate version of conservatism in comparison with FI. The party thus gave strong support to the formation of anational unity government as a replacement ofGiuseppe Conte's centre-leftgovernment. In February 2021, amid the formation ofMario Draghi's national unitygovernment, which was supported also by the League and FI, as well as by the main centre-left parties, C! started to attract new members from the more centrist wing of FI. As a result, the party was able to form a larger sub-group within the Chamber's Mixed Group, comprising ten deputies (including eight who were full members of the party).[22][23][24]
In May 2021 C! was a founding member of a new joint party namedCoraggio Italia (CI), whose main leaders were Toti andLuigi Brugnaro,mayor of Venice. CI formed a parliamentary group in the Chamber with more than 20 deputies. However, two C! deputies, Benigni and Sorte, left the party.[25]
In less than a year, CI, which had failed to attract substantial support among voters, according toopinion polls, experienced an internal crisis. On one side Toti wanted to form an alliance withMatteo Renzi'sItalia Viva party[26][27] and launched a new political party namedItaly in the Centre (IaC),[28][29] on the other side Brugnaro rejected establishment politics[30] and wanted to continue to be part of thecentre-right coalition.[31] In February 2022 CI's sub-group within theMixed Group, previously named "IDeA–Cambiamo!–Europeanists", was re-named "Italy in the Centre".[32] In March, a federation between Coraggio Italia and Italy in the Centre was announced, stating that they would have different organisations and parliamentary groupings.[33] In May, during a meeting of the national leadership, a provisional statute of Italy in the Centre was approved and regional coordinators and a secretariat were appointed,[34] practically supplanting Cambiamo!.
In the2022 local elections CI and IaC ran separately in most places. CI obtained relevant results only inVeneto, Brugnaro's home-region, most notably 5.2% inVerona and 4.4% inPadua, while IaC won 9.2% inGenoa, 8.5% inLa Spezia, 3.7% inRieti, 5.2% inL'Aquila and 4.3% inCatanzaro, where another list named "Cambiamo!" obtained 5.3% of the vote.
In late June 2022 CI and IaC formally split both in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.[35][36]
As of mid 2022 C! is mostly inactive. Its Facebook page is no longer visible,[37] and its official website has not been updated since the summer of 2021.[38]
| Region | Election year | Votes | % | Seats | +/– |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liguria | 2020 | 141,552 (1st) | 22.60 | 9 / 31 | New |
| Tuscany | 2020 | into Civic Tuscany | 0 / 37 | – | |
| Emilia-Romagna | 2020 | 6,341[a] | 0.29 | 0 / 50 | – |
