Five Star Movement chaos continues as court suspends Conte’s leadership

Italy's troubled Five Star Movement, a key part of the coalition government, was plunged into fresh turmoil on Tuesday after a court decision effectively removed its leader.

Published: 9 February 2022 10:58 CET

Five Star Movement chaos continues as court suspends Conte's leadership

Former Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte was elected President of the Five Star Movement in August 2021. Photo: Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP

A Naples court on Monday suspended changes to the party’s internal rules that allowed the election of former prime minister Giuseppe Conte as M5S leader last August.

The court had been asked to consider the case following complaints by Five Star supporters excluded from the leadership vote.

“We can’t deny it, the situation is very complicated,” Five Star founder Beppe Grillo – who would now appear to resume control – wrote in a Facebook message on Tuesday.

In 2018, the then proudly anti-establishment movement shook Italy and Europe by winning one-third of the vote and joining forces with the hard-right League party to create a populist government led by Giuseppe Conte, who supposedly a neutral choice agreed on by both parties.

Conte since became leader of the Five Star Movement, after his coalition government collapsed triggering a government crisis last year leading to the appointment of Mario Draghi.

Five Star remains the largest party in parliament and in power as part of Draghi’s own broad coalition, but is plagued by infighting and floundering in the polls ahead of elections planned for next year.

It has dropped from almost 33 percent of the vote four years ago to around 15 percent of public support in early February, according to an average compiled by the YouTrend institute.

Five Star Movement founder Beppe Grillo (L) and former leader Luigi Di Maio pictured in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo on March 2nd, 2018. Photo: Andreas SOLARO / AFP

Piergiorgio Corbetta, a professor at the University of Bologna, said the crisis was the inevitable consequence of internal tensions over those who want to fight the system and those who want power.

However, he said for now the disarray did not threaten Draghi’s coalition, just as Italy seeks to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Everyone is afraid of upsetting the house of cards,” Corbetta told AFP.

Gianfranco Pasquino, professor of political science at Bologna, agreed that the danger to the government was “limited”.

“The fact is that M5S remains divided but it’s not enough of a reason to bring down the government,” he said.

Conte had been increasingly at odds with Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, himself a former Five Star leader.

They clashed over the recent election of Italy’s president, a largely ceremonial but potentially influential position voted on by parliament.

At the weekend, Di Maio resigned from the Five Star’s steering committee in a bid to speak more freely about the direction of the party, suggesting further turbulence lies ahead.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

The strike comes after Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama — who is close to Meloni — called a top RAI editor to complain about a television report into Italy’s controversial migration deal with his country.

The Usigrai trade union called the strike from May 6 to May 7 saying talks with management had failed to address their concerns.

It cited numerous issues, including staff shortages and contract issues, but in first place was “the suffocating control over journalistic work, with the attempt to reduce RAI to a megaphone for the government”.

It had already used that phrase to object to what critics say is the increasing influence over RAI by figures close to Prime Minister Meloni, who leads Italy’s most right-wing government since World War II.

However, another union of RAI journalists, Unirai, said they would not join what they called a “political” strike, defending the return to “pluralism” at the broadcaster.

Funded in part by a licence fee and with top managers long chosen by politicians, RAI’s independence has always been an issue of debate.

But the arrival in power of Meloni — leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, who formed a coalition with Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party and the late Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing Forza Italia — redoubled concerns.

Tensions erupted at the weekend amid accusations RAI censored a speech by a leading writer criticising Meloni ahead of Liberation Day on April 25, when Italians mark the defeat of Fascism and the Nazis at the end of World War II.

Both RAI’s management and Meloni have denied censorship, and the premier posted the text of the monologue on her social media.

In another twist, Albania’s premier confirmed Thursday he called senior RAI editor Paolo Corsini about an TV report on Sunday into Italy’s plans to build two migration processing centres on Albanian territory.

Rama told La Stampa newspaper the report was “biased” and contained “lies” — adding that he had not raised the issue with Meloni.

The “Report” programme claimed the costs of migrant centres, which are under construction, were already “out of control” and raised questions about criminals benefiting from the project.