A weekend of passion for the Five Stars is announced, on which their entire future depends. The mediators are working to try to mend in extremis but for now the clash between the founder and guarantor of the Movement Beppe Grillo and the candidate for leadership and former prime minister Giuseppe Conte could not be more excruciating. The gist of the dispute is simple: Grillo wants to continue being the father-master of the Five Stars, to act as guarantor and to say the last word on all the decisive questions of the Movement. But Conte doesn't fit: "I'm not doing the extra" he comments with disappointment and meditates on giving up the Five Stars to found a movement of his own. The next few hours will be decisive: reconciliation in extremis or white-hot divorce.
Grillo's arrival in Rome and his meeting with the senators of the Five Stars were an unequivocal signal of war against the former prime minister: “Conte must study: he does not know our history. And I'm the guarantor and not a jerk." Clearer and tougher than that Grillo could not be: he understood that the new statute developed by Conte would mean the downsizing of him and launched the final attack to reverse the situation. Obviously Conte cannot collect and that he is not going to be the halved leader. This is why he meditates on holding a press conference and leaving his candidacy for the leadership of the Five Stars to found his own new movement. In short, the specter of the split hangs over the pentastellati. But if that were the case, the danger of a double Waterloo, for both Conte and Grillo, is just around the corner.
What role would Conte's hypothetical new movement play? Some say that could collect up to 15% snatching votes from both the grillini and the Democratic Party but it seems like a very risky calculation. Will the former premier stand in opposition to the Draghi government or will he try to get closer to the Democratic Party? In both cases the bet is high risk. Going against a government that is remedying the shortcomings of the Conte bis and which is carrying out the vaccination plan with a lot of energy and which has received Europe's promotion and money for the Recovery Plan seems somewhat problematic. But even an appeasement policy with the Democratic Party does not seem to have much political and electoral space. Perspective uphill also for the grillini: what will they do? Will they return to the hard and raw opposition after having favored, precisely with Grillo, the birth of the Draghi government? It would be hard to explain and especially after almost two years of the pandemic, Italy needs serenity and seems less fascinated by the sirens of populism. Standing against a government that is solving the country's problems, which enjoys the esteem of Europe and which above all is bringing resources into Italy's coffers would not be easy for anyone.
But self-criticism also belongs to the Democratic Party, which deluded itself into the illusion of being able to build a structural alliance with the Five Stars without ever paying attention to the contents and often following the grillini and the Contians in tow: now it risks finding itself at its side not one but two competing parties that will aim to steal his votes. And what about the liaison between the Democratic Party and Conte, already baptized by Zingaretti as the maximum expression of Italian progressivism? Luckily there is Draghi to put Italy back on track but if the left does not wake up in time, opening up to a real reform policy of full support for the current premier, it risks giving the country away to the right and finding nasty surprises when it decides to wake up after the disastrous grillina infatuation and contiana.
