In an article published today, Wednesday 7 February, The Post analyzed the electoral program that the 5 Star Movement proposes in view of the general elections of 4 March. A key appointment for our country thanks to which Luigi Di Maio, candidate for Premier and new political leader of the 5S, aspires to conquer Palazzo Chigi.
The newspaper directed by Luca Sofri explains that "in the documents published online there are many passages and entire pages copied from Wikipedia, from newspaper articles and also from texts of the PD". It should be emphasized that we are not talking about a few sentences or citations made by indicating the references and original sources, but "as many as 11 of the 20 thematic chapters appear to contain plagiarism". A conspicuous amount of material which even, in one case, comes from a 2012 parliamentary question presented by Senator Giorgio Roilo of the Democratic Party, the rival party in the race for government, which the 5 Star Movement has always considered "the emblem of every evil".
An analysis of the electoral program of the 5 Star Movement shows that many parts of it - in some cases entire pages - have been copied from other documents of a completely different nature, without any indication of their origin. Among the copied sources there are scientific studies, newspaper articles, Wikipedia pages, as well as numerous dossiers and documents produced by Parliament, in some cases written by representatives of opposing parties of the 5 Star Movement: for example in the part of the program on the "Development economic” there is a long paragraph copied from a parliamentary question from a senator of the Democratic Party.
The website of the Movimento 5 Stelle claims that the electoral program was written and elaborated by activists through the so-called "Rousseau" platform, i.e. the site controlled by Davide Casaleggio on which internal party votes are held. «It is the first time that a political force has presented itself to national elections with solutions that it is choosing together with the citizens», it is solemnly written: «In Italy the first and only political program is being born, based on participation and direct online democracy thanks to the Rousseau Operating System». However, the impression is that a significant part of the program was produced by drawing elsewhere on elaborations that have nothing to do with this path.
In all, 11 of the 20 thematic chapters appear to contain plagiarism. In the one on "Economic Development" at least ten paragraphs were copied without specifying the origin of the original text: there are excerpts from a parliamentary question made in 2012 by Senator PD Giorgio Roilo, from an IEFE Bocconi study and from an article in the 2010 written by the economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi, whose words are reproduced as if they were ideas of the M5S. There is also an entire interview by Carlo Sibilia with Swedish activist Helena Norberg-Hodge, but the names of Sibilia and Norberg-Hodge are not reported anywhere.
