Five Star Movement elects Conte as party leader

NSWith a new law and a new party leader, Italy’s five-star populist leftist movement wants to overcome its long-running crisis. As the movement announced on Friday evening, 92.8 percent of the vote went to the former prime minister in the two-day online election for the party leader. Giuseppe Conte. The 57-year-old Conte, who led two different coalition governments from June 2018 to February 2021, was the only party leader candidate. The 73-year-old cabaret artist Beppe Grillo, who founded the movement in 2009, will keep the unlimited “guarantor”.

Of the 115,000 registered members and supporters, only 67,000 took part in the vote on Thursday and Friday. At the beginning of last week, members of the movement were invited to vote on the statutes of the movement. There was, again, a low turnout of only about 53 percent, and an approval rate of 87.4 percent for the law that Conte put in place. Then , Five star movement In the future as a traditional party – based in Rome – and no longer like a decentralized popular movement. The party leader and other senior officials are elected for a term of four years, with the possibility of re-election for a second term.

After his election, Conte promised that he would devote himself to his new mission with all his might. “An amazing adventure begins, let’s experience it together,” Conte said in a video post on his Facebook page. He will do everything in his power to return politics to its “dignity”. “Politics, as I have personally noted, is a very noble and noble task,” said the former law professor, who was a blank slate in Italian politics before he was elected prime minister three years ago. After the summer vacation in September, Conte plans to travel around the country to generate new enthusiasm for the five-star movement. The program for the future government, which is due to be completed by the end of the year, must emerge in a process of widespread public participation.

Above all, Conte has to nominate candidates for the October 3 local elections in several cities and towns, which is unlikely to be easy given the continuing downward trend in opinion polls. In the March 2018 parliamentary elections, the Five Stars won about 33% of the vote, and in recent polls the party got only 15%. In local elections in October, the movement in big cities like Rome and Turin will not be able to defend its 2016 ruling in town halls. In the Parliament in Rome, the five stars represent the largest parliamentary groups in both houses, regardless of the emigration of many deputies and senators.