• Profile: Luigi Di Maio, the antithesis of Beppe Grillo who aspires to be the youngest premier in Italy
  • Italy.The Italian Government swears their positions and reconciles with the European Union

The leader of the government Five Star Movement, Luigi Di Maio, has announced his resignation as political leader of the formation, dragged by internal criticism and desertion in the last months of thirty parliamentarians 'grillinos'. The party came to the Government in 2018 thanks to its alliance with the Matteo Salvini League and remains in power after signing a coalition with the PD after the fall of the previous Executive. Since then, however, it has lost much of the consensus it reached in the last legislative elections. The step back of Di Maio, current Foreign Minister, opens an uncertain phase in the formation and calls into question the continuity of the Government with the Social Democrats.

Luigi Di Maio, 33, announced to his ministers that he would resign as political leader of the formation at a meeting held on Wednesday, according to Italian media.

The political earthquake that has caused the decision of the 'grillino' leader, just four days after the decisive regional elections that will be held in Calabria and Emilia-Romagna , leaves the government coalition weakened to face the opening of a possible crisis if Matteo Salvini League sweeps the ballot box. After the electoral debacle in the region of Umbria last year, Di Maio announced that his party would be presented alone in Emilia-Romagna, a historic bastion of the center-left, and would not support the PD candidate who currently governs the region. But the surveys predict that the strategy could reveal an absolute failure since the Five Stars would barely get 5% of the ballots.

The Five Star Movement is at its most critical moment. The bleeding of votes joins the voluntary or forced departure of about thirty members of the formation, between deputies and senators, in protest for the leadership of Di Maio. Desertions that could put the government coalition in trouble, since the majority in the Senate is getting narrower. The leader of the PD, Nicola Zingaretti , has nevertheless rejected the hypothesis of a government crisis following the departure of Di Maio. "There will be no consequences for the Government," he said.

Last year's European elections were the beginning of the end, as most analysts agree. The party sank up to 17% of the votes, half of what he had obtained only one year earlier in the legislative that brought him to power with the League. The defeat led some exponents of the party to criticize the accumulation of political positions of Di Maio, who in the previous Executive occupied the portfolio of Minister of Economic Development and Labor, in addition to being vice president of the Government. The critical voices have not ceased since then, despite the fact that the bases approved its continuity at the head of the party after the debacle in the European.

Luigi Di Maio was elected political head of the training in 2017 in a primary held through the Rousseau platform, the opaque computer system with which the training manages much of its internal policy , including appointments and expulsions. The then vice president of the Chamber of Deputies took the reins of the movement after the resignation of the founder, the comedian Beppe Grillo. Di Maio turned the movement born ten years ago into the offices of a private company, Casaleggio Associati, in the first match in Italy. A political movement that was defined transversal, was not identified with the left or the right, which sympathizers of both ideologies joined.

The strategic alliance with the Matteo Salvini League, questioned by the most progressive wing, highlighted the difficulty of hosting both currents under the same umbrella. Relevant names such as Senator Gregorio Di Falco left the ship in protest of the immigration laws promoted by the then Minister of the Interior, with the approval of the 'grillinos'. The fall of the Government and the pact with the PD to move away the call for early elections ended up upsetting the other party current.

A decade after its foundation, the Five Stars closes a chapter of its history and begins an uncertain stage in which the militants must choose a new political leader. For now, it will be Senator Vittorio Crimi , the oldest member of the Party Guarantee Committee, who will assume the movement's guidance until a congress is held in March that will open the battle for succession.

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