Five Star Movement
The Five Star Movement is a political party in Italy, led by Giuseppe Conte. It was launched on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a political activist and comedian, and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web strategist. The M5S is primarily described as populist of the syncretic kind, due to its long-time indifference to the left–right political spectrum, although it has also been variously considered as left-wing or right-wing populist. The party has been a proponent of green politics and direct democracy; since 2022, it has started a shift toward the political left and also espoused social-democratic and progressive policies. Furthermore, following an online vote held in November 2024, party members themselves decided to identify as "independent progressives".
In the 2013 general election, the M5S obtained 25.6% of the vote, but rejected a proposed coalition government with the centre-left Democratic Party and joined the opposition. In 2016 M5S' Chiara Appendino and Virginia Raggi were elected mayors of Turin and Rome, respectively. The M5S supported the successful "no" vote in the 2016 constitutional referendum. In the 2018 general election, the M5S, led by Luigi Di Maio, became the largest party with 32.7% and successfully formed a government headed by M5S-backed independent Giuseppe Conte together with the League. After the 2019 government collapsed, the party formed a new government with the PD, with Conte remaining prime minister until the 2021 government crisis, which resulted in the formation of the Draghi government. Since 2019 the M5S has occasionally sided with the centre-left coalition in regional and local elections, but not yet in general elections. In the 2022 general election, the party suffered a substantial setback, was reduced to 15.4% and joined the opposition to the Meloni government. In the 2024 Sardinian regional election, M5S' Alessandra Todde was elected president of Sardinia, the party's first regional president, at the head of a centre-left coalition.
From the establishment of the association named Five Star Movement until 2021, Grillo formally served as president, his nephew Enrico Grillo as vice president and his accountant Enrico Maria Nadasi as secretary. In 2014 Grillo appointed a five-strong directory, composed of Di Maio, Alessandro Di Battista, Roberto Fico, Carla Ruocco and Carlo Sibilia, which lasted only a few months as Grillo proclaimed himself the political head of the M5S. Grillo was succeeded as political head by Di Maio, who won the 2017 leadership election with 82% of the vote, and was appointed guarantor instead. In the run-up of the 2018 general election, Grillo separated his own blog, which was used the party's online newspaper, with the brand-new Blog delle Stelle. After the 2021 leadership election, a new party statute was approved and Conte became the new president, while Grillo continued as guarantor. The M5S has undergone several splits since its formation, including Alternative, Environment 2050 and Di Maio's Together for the Future, as well as several individual members, notably including Di Battista. In late 2024 the party held a "constituent assembly", during which it was chiefly decided to remove the role of guarantor, thus sidelining Grillo, who challenged the decision, but eventually lost.
From 2014 to 2017, the M5S was a member of the EFFD group in the European Parliament, along with the UK Independence Party and minor Eurosceptic parties. In January 2017, M5S members voted in favour of Grillo's proposal to join the ALDE Group, but the party was eventually refused and continued to sit among non-attached members, until joining The Left following the 2024 European Parliament election.
History
Meetups
On 16 July 2005, Beppe Grillo suggested through his blog that supporters adopt social networks, such as Meetup, to communicate and coordinate local meetings. The first "40 Friends of Beppe Grillo" meetups began with the initial aim to "have fun, get together, share ideas and proposals for a better world, starting from one's own city, and discuss and develop my posts, if you believe them". Meetups featured thematic working groups on topics entitled "technology and innovation", "press-communication", "ethical consumerism", "currency study", "no incinerators", and others. From these beginnings, Grillo was asked to stand in the October 2005 centre-left coalition primaries for the selection of the prime ministerial candidate of The Union.On three occasions, the representatives of the Friends of Beppe Grillo meetups held national meetings with Grillo, where proposals regarding environmental issues such as the replacement of polluting incinerators with systems applying mechanical-biological waste treatment were discussed.
During the fourth national meeting held in Genoa on 3 February 2007, Grillo announced his desire to provide an autonomous space during his touring shows for local meetup activists. On 14 July 2007, some civic list representatives who participated in local elections the previous spring met in Parma to establish a national coordination between associations, movements, and organisations. They met to practice promoting and experimenting with direct and participatory democracy, and to share a document of intent, which included the establishment of proposals, abrogative referendums, the direct election of the Ombudsman, the institution of participatory budgeting, a bound mandate for public administrators, and open primaries.
V-Days
On 14 June 2007, Grillo launched Vaffanculo Day, or V-Day, in Bologna. V-Day was meant to mobilise the collection of signatures to submit a popular initiative seeking to introduce preferences in the current electoral law and to prevent parliamentary candidate nominations for the criminally convicted and those who have already completed two terms in office.The name V-Day was chosen to reflect four references. The first refers to the Normandy landings of the Allies in Normandy during World War II to symbolise how Italian citizens would invade bad policy. The second refers to the motion picture and graphic novel V for Vendetta, which the M5S frequently relates with its principles of political renewal. The third refers to the interjection vaffanculo directed at bad policy, while the fourth is a reference to the Roman numeral for five.
V-Day, which continued the "Clean Parliament" initiative promoted by Grillo since 2006, took place in many Italian cities on 8 September 2007 to evoke the state of confusion caused by the Badoglio Proclamation on 8 September 1943. On that day, 336,000 signatures were collected, far exceeding the 50,000 required to file a popular initiative law. For the occasion, Michele Serra coined the term grillismo.
V2-Day was organised for 25 April 2008, a second day of action aimed at collecting signatures for three referendums. On 29 and 30 September 2007 in Lucca, several members of the meetups and local civic lists, in the initial wake of the discussions started on the net and in the wake of the previous meeting of Perugia, defined the policies for the establishment of civic lists. On 10 October 2007, Grillo gave guidance on how to create the civic lists.
Five Star Civic Lists
On 3 December 2008, Grillo presented the symbol of the Five Star Civic Lists for the 2009 local elections. The logo in the V of citizenship is a reference to V-Day. On 17 February 2009 in Bologna, a gathering of civic lists discussed the future of the movement and the coming elections. In particular, Sonia Alfano consulted with the activist base of the movement about her possible candidacy for the European Parliament as an independent candidate with the Italy of Values list. She became the first Member of the European Parliament from the M5S.On 8 March 2009, the first national meeting of the Five Star Civic Lists was held in Florence, where Grillo presented the Charter of Florence, a 12-point program of the various local civic lists in the afternoon. About twenty local groups presented their ideas and experiences. In April 2009, Grillo announced he had received a letter from Nobel Prize winner in economics Joseph Stiglitz in which he declared he would look carefully at the experience of local civic lists promoted through the blog.
On 29 March 2009, Grillo announced that in the upcoming 2009 European Parliament election in Italy he would support Luigi de Magistris and Sonia Alfano as independent candidates in the lists of IdV, together with the journalist Carlo Vulpio. On 11 June, De Magistris and Alfano, candidates in all five constituencies, were elected to the European Parliament, resulting in the first and second preferences. In the same election, as stated by Grillo, 23 councillors were elected from the Five Star Civic Lists, especially in the municipalities of Emilia-Romagna in North Italy.
On 9 September 2009, the launch of the National Five Star Movement, inspired by the ideologies of the Charter of Florence, was announced. On 4 October 2009, Grillo, along with Gianroberto Casaleggio, Grillo declared the birth of the M5S and presented a programme at the Emerald Theatre in Milan.
2010–2012 regional and local elections
During the 2010 Italian regional elections, the M5S obtained notable results in the five regions where it ran a candidate for president, as Giovanni Favia gained 7.0% of the vote in Emilia-Romagna ; Davide Bono 4.1% in Piedmont ; David Borrelli 3.2% in Veneto ; Vito Crimi 3.0% in Lombardy ; and Roberto Fico 1.3% in Campania.In the 2011 Italian local elections on 15 and 16 May, the M5S was present in 75 of the 1,177 municipalities in the vote, including 18 of the 23 provincial capitals called to vote. In the first round, the M5S entered its representatives in 28 municipalities, and Piedmont. In Southern Italy, it rarely obtained 2% of the vote.
File:Beppe Grillo - Trento 2012 04.JPG|thumb|220px|Beppe Grillo in Trento during the 2013 electoral campaign
In the 2011 Molise regional election on 16 and 17 October, the M5S had its own candidate for the presidency and its own list. The list received 2.27% of the votes and the presidential candidate garnered 5.60% of the vote, but the movement achieved no seats.
In the 2012 Italian local elections, the M5S did well in several cities of the Northern Italy, notably in Genoa, Verona, Parma, Monza, and Piacenza. In the small Venetian town of Sarego, the M5S's candidate was elected mayor with 35.2% of the vote. In the run-offs, it won the mayorships of Parma, Mira, and Comacchio. After the election, the M5S consistently scored around 15–20% nationally in opinion polls, frequently ahead of the centre-right The People of Freedom and second to the centre-left Democratic Party.
In the 2012 Sicilian regional election on 28 October, the M5S fielded Giancarlo Cancelleri as candidate. The campaign kicked off with Grillo's arrival in Messina on 10 October swimming from the mainland. In the election, Cancelleri came third with 18.2% of the vote, while the M5S was the most voted for party at 14.9%, obtaining 15 seats out of 90 in the Sicilian Regional Assembly in a very fragmented political landscape; however, the election was characterised by low participation as only 47.4% of eligible voters turned out to vote.