Is it just a power struggle for the leadership and the “soul” of the left-wing populist five-star movement?

Or will the dispute between Beppe Grillo, the wandering founder of the “Movimento Cinque Stelle”, and the former head of government Giuseppe Conte even shake the current Prime Minister Mario Draghi and his coalition?

Matthias Rüb

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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    Because the five stars, winners of the parliamentary elections in March 2018 with almost 33 percent of the vote, are the strongest political force in Draghi's very broad, but also very heterogeneous government alliance.

    It is true that the movement has suffered heavy losses in all votes in the past three years - from the 2019 European elections to various regional elections - and in recent polls it only received 16 percent approval.

    But the five stars are still the largest parliamentary groups in both chambers of parliament, although around a quarter of the five-star parliamentarians elected in 2018 in the House of Representatives and almost a third of the five-star parliamentarians elected in 2018 have now defected to other parliamentary groups or parties.

    Conte calls for intra-party democracy

    The leadership crisis at the five stars has been smoldering for months. In January 2020, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio resigned from his post of "capo politico", something like an executive chairman. Neither Grillo nor Conte hold an elected office, neither in the party nor in parliament. The television comedian Grillo is the “guarantor” of the movement, a post created for him that is not limited in time as the all-powerful “godfather” of the five stars.

    Law professor Conte, who used to describe himself as an “advocate of the people” during his reign from June 2018 to February 2021, has never run for any elected office: the largely unknown academic was a member of the five-star movement after the 2018 elections , of which he is still not a member, was lifted into the highest government office. Conte also has no mandate in parliament. Its political capital is its continued popularity.

    After Conte was overthrown as head of government in February, a group of grandees of the five stars had the idea of ​​breathing new vitality into their moribund movement with Conte as "capo politico".

    But the "advocate of the people" set conditions: he insisted on drafting the new statutes and repositioning the movement on a truly democratic basis.

    In fact, the supposedly grassroots democratic five stars have always been run by the absolutist Sun King Grillo.

    "I am a 'guarantor' and not an asshole"

    After the election victory in 2018, Grillo initially ordered the movement to join forces with the right-wing national Lega of Matteo Salvini. Then in September 2019 the founder of the movement steered the five stars into the left-wing coalition with the Social Democrats - the ultimate party of the political establishment against which the movement had always revolted since it was founded in 2009. And finally, in February 2021, Grillo ordered that the five stars should also participate in the coalition under the former ECB boss Mario Draghi - another representative of the hated political and economic establishment.

    Conte, at 56 years of age in the prime political age, is convinced that the five stars will only have a future as a predictable left party and reliable ally of the Social Democrats; and as a party with internal democratic structures, where an egomaniacal patriarch no longer chooses candidates and coalitions according to his changing tastes. But the 72-year-old “garante” does not want to know anything about giving up his absolute power over the movement.

    Last week Grillo traveled from his place of residence in Genoa to Rome for two days and threw the gauntlet at the rebellious Conte in front of the assembled team of five-star parliamentarians.

    "I'm a 'guarantor' and not an asshole", Grillo railed.

    Grillo did not literally tear the 32-page draft statutes of Contes in his hands in the air.

    In words, however: Conte “first has to learn before it can help us”, Grillo shouted after reports from ear witnesses agreed: “He does not know our history!” And Grillo continued to excite himself: “It is Conte who needs me, not the other way around!

    I'm the visionary, he's just a rational person. "

    Will there be a break this Monday?

    Conte, in turn, couldn't let that sit on him. Ultimately, he demanded a public apology from Grillo that a simple phone call to him would not do it. In fact, Conte also weighs a lot in this battle between two alpha males for the leadership of a movement that has allegedly renounced machismo in politics. According to polls, a party founded by Conte could expect up to 15 percent of the vote, of which, according to the opinion polls, up to 70 percent would come from voters in the Five Star, the rest from the Social Democrats and other left-wing parties.

    Conte personally is still held in high esteem by the population, who remembered him as a level-headed manager through the first year of the pandemic: the most recent surveys give up to 40 percent approval, a very high value for a "former" without a current position in government or party.

    Conte has announced a press conference for this Monday. Will there be a final break or will the hectic mediators - above all Foreign Minister Di Maio - still manage to achieve a reconciliation or at least a truce between Grillo and Conte? Among the leading figures of the movement there are roughly the same number of supporters of Grillo and Conte. Both factions fear a rupture. Because that would mean the end of their political careers for many, at the latest after the parliamentary elections in spring 2023.