Can Italians really afford to vote the ‘honest man’ into power today?
The burgeoning 5-Star Movement is pressing all the right buttons with voters, but it may not get a chance at power
A clean-cut and sharply dressed man was touring Italy last week in an effort to win hearts and minds.
That man was Luigi Di Maio, 31, and if the latest opinion polls are to be believed, the populist 5-Star Movement that he leads is set to win the most votes in today’s general election.
Having spurned traditional alliances and coalitions, 5-Star may still not get a chance to govern. But its rise is sparking fear among Italy’s establishment politicians, who have tried to curtail its influence since it was set up nine years ago by standup comedian Beppe Grillo.
“I do not know if we will win,” Demetrio Pusceddu, a 5-Star supporter from Milan, told The
National. “But the idea is winning for my country.”
In his final rally on Friday, Mr Di Maio stuck to his triedand-tested script, denouncing corruption and promising to give power back to the Italian people.
At the Piazza del Popolo in the centre of Rome, he urged Italians to reject the policies of the left and the right, and to vote for a different future.
“The centre left is over, the centre right is over,” Mr Di Maio declared to a cheering crowd. “This is your chance to say no to the parties that have ruled the country for 20 years without changing anything.”
He promised to halve MPs’ salaries and cut on their pensions, and to slash €30 billion (Dh135.74bn) of “waste and privilege”. The money, he said, would be redirected to families, the poor, the unemployed and retirees.
“No one will be left behind by the state,” Mr Di Maio said.
“We don’t want to hear broken promises any more.”
The crowd roared their support, with cries of “onesta”, or honesty.
If elected, Mr Di Maio could become Italy’s youngest prime minister. For a university dropout, his ascent has been as spectacular as that of the movement he leads.
The message about the corruption and ineffectiveness of the political class has been
central to 5-Star’s appeal from the start.
Mr Grillo’s foul-mouthed rants against the ruling elites, voiced through blogs and high-profile tours around the country, won the party an early following among liberal-minded Italians.
Under his leadership, 5-Star won a quarter of the vote in the February 2013 election. But the group has since sought to temper its anti-establishment image in order to widen its appeal,
with the appointment of the moderate Mr Di Maio last September the clearest representation of its change in direction.
Mr Grillo – a 69-year-old with an unkempt beard – has been seen less and less at campaign events, although he made a brief appearance alongside his successor at Friday’s rally.
The party has softened its Eurosceptic stance. While Mr Di Maio has repeatedly criticised EU budget rules, he now says a referendum on abandoning the single currency would be a “last resort” after attempts to overhaul EU treaties.
But the party continues to attack corruption and cronyism and to denounce bankers’ pay while demanding tax cuts for small businesses.
It is a message that is proving popular in a nation fed up with austerity and resentful about years of a stagnant economy.
“Politicians don’t represent us; we’re tired of their corruption,” said Romeo Caputo, a 5-Star supporter from Pescara. “They’re doing their best to stop our party but they can’t. This is our time.”
The last opinion polls, taken before a blackout began two weeks ago, showed that the election was likely to end with a hung parliament.
5-Star is top choice, with about 28 per cent of the vote, but that is not enough to rule on their own and they have repeatedly rejected the idea of striking deals.
A centre-right alliance built around four-time premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia looks likely to win the largest number of seats – propelling the 81-year-old billionaire back to centre stage even though he is barred from becoming prime minister again after a tax fraud conviction.
Another possibility is that Forza Italia and the centre-left Democratic Party, led by current prime minister Paolo Gentiloni, build a “grand coalition” after the election.
Staying out of power could be the best thing for an “anti-establishment” group such as the 5-Star, one analyst said.
“It would take a strong and organised group of competent and experienced policymakers, something they simply lack,” according to Filippo Taddei, professor of international finance at SAIS Johns Hopkins University.
“The irony is, the 5-Star Movement should actually be hoping it doesn’t get into government in this election. Blaming the system rather than ruling it is the greatest chance it has of increasing its votes.”