ROMA (ITALPRESS) – The comparison of the new electoral law has caused the use of capocrazia to explode, the concentration of power in the hands of the head of a political party, entered today strongly in the parliamentary debate of opposition and majority, as explains Michele Cortelazzo in a column of the Treccani portal. it is dedicated to the words of neopolitics. The recent parliamentary debate on the new electoral law has exploded the use of the term capocrazia, increasingly recurrent in the debate between majority and opposition. This word, initially used primarily by opposition leaders, was also taken by the majority to counteract or minimize opponent’s criticism.
To reconstruct the history and the growing diffusion in the language of the politics of this neologism is Michele A. Cortelazzo, linguist and academic of the Crusca, in an article of the column The words of the neopolitics, published in Italian Language, the digital magazine of the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani.
Used for the first time in an editorial by the constitutionalist Michele Ainis published on “La Repubblica” on September 24, 2017, the word took over from 2024, and found space until today in 80 newspaper articles. Among the politicians who used it are the senators of AVS Tino Magni, who in a statement of September 10, 2026 spoke of “a sort of dizziness contrary to the Constitution” and Peppe De Cristofaro, who in an interview with the “Manifesto” of September 11 defined the proposal of electoral law inspired “at the beginning of the capcracy, with faithful parliamentarians, the indication of the premier and an award”.
Enrico Borghi of Italia Viva has also used the term, defining the electoral law proposed by the majority “a forcing, which denotes a crisis of our democracy”, a “capocracy” and a “hidden priest”, as reported by “Open” on 7 September 2026.
Neologism has been resounded several times even in the classrooms of the Parliament, thanks to the Senator of the Democratic Party Cecilia D’Elia according to which the new proposal of electoral law “is a measure that responds to an idea of democracy that can be synthesized with the capocracy”, while colleague Daniele Manca spoke about the transformation of democracies into capocracies.
In the same session the word was resumed by the senator of Brothers of Italy Cinzia Pellegrino to contest its use by the opposition: “We have heard you crucible in your neologisms (we have heard “capocracy”, “premieratino”), because the self-taught is always good.”.
The next day the Fdi group leader in the Senate Lucio Malan and the Riforme ministra Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati intervened to ironically reject this lexical choice: “So, speaking of authoritarian drift and laceration of the constitutional fabric of “capocracy”, as I have heard, is really a fuor of work,” said Casellati taking the distance from the use that makes the opposition.
-Photos press office Treccani-
(ITALPRESS).
