The 5 Star Movement (M5S) has just permanently dismissed its founder, the comedian Beppe Grillo, who launched this iconoclastic group in 2007 with the famous Vaffanculo Daya cry to the entire traditional political class to go home, and he himself ended up defenestrated by his party, which could no longer stand him. A second telematic referendum of the movement’s base (89,000 registered), after Grillo challenged the first vote, has once again ratified on Sunday night the change in the internal rules that involves eliminating the comedian’s peculiar position. He was a “guarantor”, a kind of honorary position, but in which he still had extensive power and, above all, he charged 300,000 euros a year for advisory work. 64% of the militants voted and 80% supported firing him. “Now the page is turned, the M5S is refounded,” summarized Giuseppe Conte, who has been fighting with Grillo for control of the formation since he became prime minister in 2018. He has finally managed to get it off his back.
Conte, an unknown law professor until the M5S took him out of his pocket after winning the 2018 elections, has since piloted the entire phase of the movement’s exercise of political power. Meanwhile, Grillo acted in the shadow of a great guru who monitored the essence of the invention, which has been difficult to follow. For the sake of a transversality and ideological lack of definition presented as a distinctive virtue, in reality the M5S has crossed all the ideologies of the parliamentary arc.
Grillo, a famous and volcanic television comedian who is now 76 years old, channeled in the 2000s the enormous popular discontent towards political parties, despised as a “caste”, a term that was the banner of his movement and then spread to Spain. He filled pavilions throughout Italy with a show denouncing corruption and the vices of the system, and his blog was one of the most read in the world. He even ran for the primaries of the center-left Democratic Party (PD), until he decided to jump into politics on his own. He founded the M5S in 2009, began running for municipal elections and in the great hangover of the 2008 crisis, the final decline of the Berlusconi era and the confusion of the left, in the 2013 elections it was already the party with the most votes. He failed to govern due to his rejection of an alliance with the PD, but in 2018 he already made a splash. The Italians wanted to do the experiment, one more.
There were two surprises. One, Giuseppe Conte, an unknown person whom no one had voted for because he was not even on the lists and who both Grillo and the movement thought they could control. In reality, Conte has revealed himself to be a skillful and tough politician. The second surprise was that the M5S governed with Matteo Salvini’s La Liga, a far-right populist party. After a year, encouraged by the polls, Salvini tried a trick to anticipate the elections that went wrong and Conte changed allies: it was his turn to the PD and other small parties of the center and left. Finally, the Executive fell in 2021 to make way for a technical Government of Mario Draghi, which the M5S also supported.
These juggling actions left a trail of internal crises, abandonments and affronts. The last was a bitter departure from the PD, which did not forgive it for bringing down Draghi’s Executive, which made them go separately to the 2022 elections with the known result: the triumph of Giorgia Meloni and the first far-right Italian Government. Electorally, the M5S has been plummeting to the current 10%.
In the midst of an emergency, Conte undertook a comprehensive redesign of the party that involved, in large part, emancipating himself from Grillo’s heavy paternity and removing him from his command position by force. This is what was approved by vote of the militants in a congress held last November, in addition to eliminating the prohibition of repeating more than two terms, one of the pillars of the party’s identity. Because what at first seemed like a guarantee that no one was going to make a living from politics had become a problem when it came to forming a solid ruling class. Furthermore, the M5S has defined itself politically as “independent progressive.” The plan is to reach the next elections, in 2027, if the Meloni Government lasts the entire legislature, in an alliance with the PD.
Grillo, who saw himself betrayed ―“The values of the M5S have disappeared. “It is a party that I no longer recognize,” he reacted by forcing a second vote thanks to his power as guarantor, to try to ensure that the necessary quorum of 50% was not reached. He invited members to “go pick mushrooms” and abandon their vote. He gave a personal fight to Conte, who has lost. Last night he simply posted a farewell photo emulating the final scene of the movie The Truman Showa staircase that leads to a door in the set through which the protagonist disappears.
It remains to be seen whether Grillo will disappear or continue fighting, which could degenerate into a fight in court over ownership of the name and symbol of the movement. Like another Italian match of a lifetime.
