Italian Politics
Today, Italy is an economic powerhouse in Europe with an equally sized military. It has seen it's fair share of conflict in the 20th century but now it is seeing its own internal conflict. With such a wide array of ideas in the nation, Italy suffers from having "too many cooks in the kitchen." To break it down, the parliament consists of four different parties and two main coalitions, the center-left and center-right coalitions. In these coalitions exists nine more parties. All-in-all, the country has a complex distribution 13 dominant parties with many smaller regionally-based powers as well ("The Local", 2017). Historically, the parliament has suffered from high-levels of corruption at all levels of government, as well as being slow at implementing change. Italy's youth wants to change this.
Five Star Movement supporters with founder, Beppe Grillo, at a protest. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP
Virtual to Reality: The Five Star Movement
The Five Star Movement (also called Movimento 5 Stelle or M5S) formed to overcome the problems in the Italian Government through an "online democracy" ideology. M5S was formed in 2009 by comedian Beppe Grillo and web strategist Gianroberto Casaleggio over the internet . They aimed for a political party which could govern via the internet without having to conform to the establishment or any political group. Using Grillo's blog and Meetup.com, M5S soon gained popularity and eventually gained traction through protests. Its initial strengths came from the idea of taking political elites out of office and replacing them with a direct democracy using online voting. Today, the Five Star Movement focuses on anti-establishment, environmentalist, and anti-globalist policies (Newell, 2016).
The Five Star Movement has definitely shown to have an interesting combination of ideas. Due to the nature of the party, many different ideas are presented. They are descriptively right-wing, however, they do hold some left-wing values such as sustainable energy and legalization of gay marriage. Because of this, Five Star is also referred to as Italy's modern populist party.
Matteo Salvini, The League's hard-right leader. Photo: Reuters
Struggles of the Party
While being a relatively new party in the Italian government, Five Star is facing many issues with opposing parties and from within the party itself. When Five Star ran in the general election Parliament, they won the most votes of any individual party but lost to the coalitions. Today, First Star had joined the center-left Democratic Party, a party which it would have opposed in the past. Struggling to fight against the establishment, the movement is failing to adequately provide for Italy and, in turn, is facing internal fractures. One issue is how First Star side-stepped the League, a hard-right party run by Matteo Salvini, and now faces political scrutiny. Part of the issue arises when the Five Star Movement is forced to work with the establishment, the very group it claims to fight against.
Recently, Five Star has held a great deal of power in Italy but lacks the ability to use it. Critics argue that Five Star is unable to effectively govern the state and that it has joined the Democratic Coalition out of desperation to prevent the collapse of the country (Horowitz, 2020). Several party members of Five Star have left and joined other groups such as the left coalition or Salvini's League. These departures came from M5S's failure to uphold their promises. The party originally condemned major infrastructure, industrial and energy projects, however, after gaining considerable power they have let these projects go through (Horowitz, 2020).
Now, the Five Star Movement has become a less and less favored party in Italy. Opinion polls have shown a 19 point drop in the last two years. In 2020, only 15% of the population favor the party (Gilbert, 2020). Some of the biggest issues facing M5S are the threat of the opposition, Salvini's League, and the lack of organization.
References
An introductory guide to the Italian political system. (2017, May 18). Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://www.thelocal.it/20190828/the-five-star-digital-voting-platform-that-could-threaten-a-government-deal-in-italy
Gilbert, M. (2020, October 09). Italy's 'Incoherent' Coalition Survived Local Elections. Now Can It Govern? Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29119/in-italy-elections-the-incoherent-coalition-held-its-own-now-can-it-govern
Horowitz, J. (2020, January 18). As Five Star Party Risks Implosion, Italy Fears the Fallout. Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/world/europe/italy-five-star.html
Newell, J. (2016, December 1). What is Italy's Five Star movement? Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://theconversation.com/what-is-italys-five-star-movement-69596
Conte says to be Italians' defence lawyer in govt of change - English. (2018, May 23). Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://www.ansa.it/english/news/2018/05/23/conte-says-to-be-italians-defence-lawyer-in-govt-of-change_3294ff64-f175-4f2d-8323-c775d270645c.html
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