Will Italian voters back EU and see off populist surge?

Right and far-right in Europe’s third largest economy may again be proven wrong in the polls

You could almost hear the sigh of relief as Emmanuel Macron easily defeated Marine Le Pen in the French presidential race in early May. In a Europe on edge following the populist Brexit vote and election of US President Donald Trump, the French result signalled that the grand experiment in common EU governance still has life despite dire predictions to the contrary.

But there was little time for celebration among EU supporters. Their eyes turned almost immediately to Italy, the third-largest economy in the EU, where another populist party is making markets and EU leaders nervous.

Anti-EU candidates have now been defeated in the Netherlands, Austria and France over the past six months, but Italy has its own brand of intrinsic defiance. The ancient land was for long a collection of sometimes friendly, sometimes warring, city-states and regions. Even today some wonder if its unification under Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1861 could be deemed entirely successful.

Amid fractious Italian politics, the Five Star Movement (M5S) established in 2009 by comedian Beppe Grillo has tapped into unrest over a decade of economic struggle and the sense, fairly or not, that Italian politics is a process of selection not election. He says his party can use blogs, Internet clicks and anti-establishment fervor to get things done. Candidates have been vetted and voted for via a blog that carries Grillo’s name.

The party played a large part in the defeat of a referendum on constitutional reform last December pushed by then-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD). Known as the “Demolition Man” for his high-energy tactics, Renzi resigned following the defeat.

Now it appears he is staging a comeback. A recent PD election again selected him as party secretary and the M5S is now foremost on his demolition list. “Be human,” he has said to Grillo. “Not an algorithm.”

Polls are showing that potential voters are about equally divided among the PD, M5S and coalition of right-wing parties, but it is the Grillists that have the biggest chance to upend the status quo, according to political analysts.

“The Five Star Movement is not a transitory phenomenon,” says Piero Ignazi, professor of political science at the University of Bologna. “It reflects the malcontent of the underprivileged and also the educated who feel there is no place for them in society.”

Now is the time for them to choose between the right or the left, not in the sense of parties, but in values. And that uncertainty is part of what makes markets and other EU leaders nervous

Yet as it took parliament and mayoral seats, M5S officials often seemed amateurs with no core ideas or practical plans.

“It is a movement loaded with ambiguity and contradictions,” writes Paolo Flores d’Arcais, director of Micromega magazine. “Now is the time for them to choose between the right or the left, not in the sense of parties, but in values.”

And that uncertainty is part of what makes markets and other EU leaders nervous. Is the M5S anti-EU? Does it want to scrap the euro? It has itself seemed to come down on all sides.

Ignazi says that is now changing as firebrand Grillo fades into the background. “It is becoming more mainstream, not just a protest party,” he says, noting it has hired veteran economists and strategists to formulate more coherent policies. Now it seems the party is not strongly anti-EU.

One of its promises appears to have remained steadfast: To provide the

reddito di cittadinanza, a living income through government subsidy to every citizen who faces poverty.

“The reddito di cittadinanza is a serious option but cannot become a surrogate for economic, industrial and social plans,” says Flores d’Arcais.

But the PD says it wants to deliver jobs and growth, not subsidies. Though the effort to streamline notoriously complex Italian governance was rejected by voters in last year’s referendum, the party says its start on reform has proved a modest success with 70,000 new jobs created.

But it is again led by Renzi, the young and ambitious former mayor of his hometown Florence. In a society of long-held conceptions, he is viewed as a brash Florentine bull. Voters in many regions object to his style.

Philosopher Massimo Cacciari, former mayor of Venice, notes that Renzi “has a very strong will — he should mediate, but he cannot”. Though he has himself disputed the former prime minister, Cacciari admits Renzi is the only one who can lead the party to success at the polls.

“Without Renzi, Grillo’s party arrives at 40 per cent (of the vote),” says Cacciari, probably enough to prevail in the next election, now set for May, 2018.

Also in the election mix is a mooted coalition of former prime minister Silivo Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the anti-immigration Northern League led by Matteo Salvini and the nationalist Fratelli d’Italia. Though the polls say they could together attract a significant bloc of voters, most observers doubt their ability to work together. “A right-wing coalition might win, but who would lead?” asks Ignazi, who thinks that in the Italian politics everything is possible.

The ongoing political drama is being closely watched in Europe and beyond. As the firebrand faces the bull, the fate of the European Union could hang in the balance.