“THIS isn’t populism,” said Alessandro Di Battista of the Five Star Movement (M5S) as the first-round results of Italy’s local elections on June 5th came in. “It isn’t a protest. It’s good politics.” The M5S candidate for mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi (pictured), had taken 35% of the votes. Mr Di Battista, one of the party’s leaders, was relishing its biggest breakthrough since the general election of 2013, when it won a quarter of the ballot.
The race now moves to a run-off on June 19th. But with a ten-point lead in the first round over the candidate of the governing Democratic Party (PD), Ms Raggi is well placed to become Rome’s first woman mayor. It was a good showing in M5S’s first electoral test without its co-founders: Beppe Grillo, who has resumed his career as a comedian, and Gianroberto Casaleggio, an internet entrepreneur who died in April. Running the movement is now the job of a five-person directorate that includes Mr Di Battista.
The face of M5S that voters saw in these elections was a new one. The populist Mr Grillo and his amusing (and sometimes disquieting) rants, his mistrust of the euro and ambiguity on...Continue reading
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