Emanuel Mazzilli is one of the approximately 200,000 Italians living in California. He has a well-paid job in Silicon Valley working as a software engineer; he recently bought a house in downtown San Francisco, and considers himself fortunate that by the age of 30 he’s done well with all major things he set his mind to. But after the parliament elections in Italy on March 4, he might be packing his life to Rome to pursue an even bigger dream: putting all his knowledge in the service of his home country.
Mazzilli is a candidate for the Five Star Movement, a party founded in 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a comedian critical of the establishment. If elected, Mazzilli would become a member in the Chamber of Deputies, one of the two houses of the Italian parliament, and represent the Italian diaspora in North and Central America. He says he’d focus on digitizing Italy’s consular systems, fighting bureaucracy, providing health care in Italy for Italians residing abroad, digitizing the voting system, and reforming his homeland’s property tax. All of these moves, he says, are intended to make Italians abroad prouder of their country and maybe one day even consider returning home.
“Many people say they would live in Italy even with less money than abroad, but in a system that is fair and meritocratic and where people are valued,” he says.
Mazzilli comes from Teramo, a small town in the Abruzzo region, a two-hour drive east of Rome, and moved to the United States six years ago. In 2010, after having changed several jobs in different industries and eventually settled for a career in engineering, Mazilli says he found out ab out the Five Star Movement and decided to join this party that emphasized on the importance of technology and youth involvement.
“We had huge economical problems in Italy that are still there and also economical problems for young people coming out of university struggling to find a job,” Mazzilli says. “There were reforms that increased the number of years that people needed to work before they could retire and this inevitably blocked young people who didn’t have access to jobs filled by those who couldn’t retire.”
Last December he decided to submit his application for the North American deputy candidacy. He filled an online form, showed proof of a clean criminal record with no pending criminal charges, and activists in the party elected him as a candidate.
“I was thinking it wasn’t the best time in my career in terms of job opportunities and leaving everything I have in America to follow a dream, but then I though t I believe so much in this thing that money and career can be put aside for now,” Mazzilli says.
The Party of a Troubled Generation
As youth unemployment in Italy soars above 30 percent and predictions of the country’s national debt skyrockets to above 130 percent of the gross domestic product through 2019, the stakes of the elections in Europe’s fourth-largest economy are high, say analysts, as there seems to be no predictable outcome of how Italy will look like after the results.
Three main blocs are fighting for power: The center-right, represented by parties such as Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, whose leader has been sentenced for tax evasion, paying for sex with an under-age female and breaching confidentiality; the Five Star Movement, a party leading in most polls and both criticized and praised for its lack of a political legacy or clear agenda; and the center-left, represented by parties such as the Democrats and Communists.
“It’s very unlikely that any of these three groups is going to get an outright majority in the parliament election,” says Erik Jones, professor of European studies at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna. “If everything goes to plan we’re going to have to break apart the pre-electoral coalitions and then reforge them as some kind of post-electoral government. Whether that’s even possible remains to be seen.”
All parties have faced some form of accusations: of being corrupt, of being opposed to the European Union, or having leaders who seem to fly against human rights. Yet among all, the Five Star Movement faces a new charge: that of being a new type of European populist party that excites younger, urban and educated audiences, but dealing with members with little political experience. The party has decided to open up the pool of candidates to include people with significant experience in either the voluntary sector or political organizations, therefore attracting more “professional” politicians, Jones says.
“Traditionally, in the Five Star Movement candidates would put themselves forward and there would be kind of an online voting process among the activists of the party that would result in ultimately the selection of candidates who would stand for parliament or local election,” Jones says. The end result, he says, is Five Star candidates with no political experience would find themselves in positions of “extreme responsibility.”
When joking about his party, Mazzilli says the Five Star Movement is the kind of political formation that would probably not receive more than 1.5 percent of the votes in the U.S. By contrast in Italy, Five Star seems to have no problem convincing people to gather at the polls.
“It’s like the Green Party with Bernie Sanders on the social aspect, a justice aim, and an anti-establishment flavor like Occupy Wall Street,” he says.
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Mazzilli likes most things about his political affiliation, even the parts that raise questions. He finds it appealing that the party focuses on online campaigning and reducing the political cost of a candidacy, as well as capping the amount of private donations that the candidates can get. This, he says, helps “take the money out of politics.”
At the same time, he also believes there’s value in bringing new people onto the old Italian political stage. Politics, he says, shouldn’t be a career to begin with, but a temporary position in the service of people.
“The problem of corruption is the problem of self-preserving your job,” Mazzilli says. “Especially in Italy, politicians don’t work for the people but work for their re-election. The Movement has a two-term rule: Everyone can be elected only twice and then they have to go back to their jobs.”
When Expats Come Home
Migration is a topic that has dominated Italian politics in the recent years, a trend seen in other European countries such as France and the United Kingdom. Yet Italy has been historically a country whose citizens have settled someplace else. According to 2016 government data, there are more than 17 million people of Italian descent living in America, while in 2013 around 400,000 Italian citizens were living in the U.S., United Nations data show.
While countries in Central and Eastern Europe have struggled with a “brain drain” that forced them to come up with strategies of bringing skilled workers back home in order to keep their economies functioning, experts say we shouldn’t necessarily fear the phenomenon , as it might yield good results in time.
“When enough workers left Poland, working standards improved, and the famous Polish plumber returned home,” says Jonathon Moses, professor of sociology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. “When enough people leave, the authorities at home have to improve conditions or risk ruling over an empty shell.”
Mazzilli says many Italians like him, if given the opportunity, would get more involved and give back to their homeland. Everything starts, he says, with rebuilding the belief that there are plenty of things to be done in Italy even with lower pay.
“There are Italians who would want to go back if you’d remove the reason why they left,” he says. “And I learned that living for just money in life ultimately makes you sad.”
Experts agree that, although historically people have had multiple reasons to relocate, from fleeing war to looking for better opportunities abroad, a more appealing homeland might make a difference.
“If the country of origin seemed more attractive now than it used to, then the ballots between leaving and going would change,” says John Logan, professor of sociology at Brown University.
Mazzilli says he knows the decision of leaving America might seem rushed for many and it comes with several sacrifices, such as moving to a new home in Rome, earning less than in the Bay Area, and even having his life partner change countries. Yet it will all be worth it, he says, since he believes in his political mission.
“I told myself you might look back and say, ‘Oh, I have a lot of money and a great career, I am a big engineer somewhere, but I missed the opportunity of doing something impactful for my country.'”
What will happen on March 4 is anyone’s guess, yet analysts say these elections will definitely send a strong message to the European Union to either take the Italians more seriously or, on the contrary, scold them for a new political mess. Yet one thing is certain: No matter how depressed about the current situation, Italians do take their politics seriously.
“They have a long history of compulsory voting that built in the cultural norm that you go to the polls,” Jones says. “When Italians are depressed, only 70 percent of them vote. When they are really excited it gets up to 80 to 85 percent.”
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Meet Italy’s Five-Star Movement Candidate for North and Central America originally appeared on usnews.com
