ROME: Forget the outbursts of Beppe Grillo. To gauge the prospects of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement listen out for the more measured tones of 29-year-old Luigi Di Maio, fast emerging as the next leader of Italy’s second largest party.
The 5-Star Movement exploded onto the scene at Italy’s 2013 national election when it won a stunning 25 percent of the vote, paving the way for the rise of anti-system parties around Europe, such as Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece.
When most people think of 5-Star they still think of Grillo, the burly, shaggy-haired comedian who founded the movement six years ago. But over the last year the 67-year-old maverick has been gradually handing over the reins to a new “directorate” of five young leaders.
Without any formal investiture Di Maio has become by far the most prominent of these, and he is widely expected to be the party’s candidate for prime minister at the next election.
That is due in 2018, but with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi facing growing divisions in his parliamentary majority, many commentators believe the vote might come much sooner.
Damn it, you’re the leader now aren’t you,” a chuckling Grillo told Di Maio this week at a joint news conference. “I’m not in the picture any more,” he added.
In line with its credo of direct democracy, the leader and candidate for premier will be formally chosen ahead of the election by an on-line ballot of 5-Star’s members.
“We made big mistakes after the 2013 vote but we have learned from them,” Di Maio told Reuters in the enormous office he occupies as deputy speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, his slight figure dwarfed by gilt baroque mirrors and renaissance paintings. “We spent all our time trying to get organized and we didn’t communicate with the outside world.”
