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Italy’s Five Star Movement put a new strain on Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s coalition government after announcing it will split due to differing views about the best approach to the Ukraine invasion.
Luigi Di Maio, the country’s foreign minister, was the most notable defector. He has been a vocal critic of Russia’s invasion and proponent of military support for Kyiv.
France 24 reported that since taking on the role of foreign minister, he has more or less embraced Draghi’s pro-European, and “pro-Atlanticist views” to global policy.
Di Maio noted that the breakup means that the Five Star Party, which came to power in 2018, will no longer be the country’s largest, and he said he plans on starting his own political movement. Reports out of Italy say he poached 60 other former members of the Five Star Party to join.
Politico reported that he said the decision was “a painful choice that he never thought he would make.” He was critical of the party’s “ambiguity” on support for war in Ukraine.
The Five Star Movement, perhaps to its own demise, was comprised of politicians of all stripes and is divided on Ukraine. Giuseppe Conte, the head of the movement and former prime minister, agreed with supporting Ukraine at the start of the war, but has changed his tune.
He now calls for dialogue between the countries to reach a peaceful settlement, Politico reported.
France 24 reported that a rift began to emerge between Di Maio and Conte in March when the Five Star Movement voiced opposition to Rome’s decision to up its defense spending from 1.4 percent of GDP to the 2 percent NATO target by 2024 instead of 2028.
Some political analysts in Italy do not see Di Maio’s departure as particularly brave since the Five Star Movement, which was considered a populist, anti-establishment political party, is seen as a fading star trying to remain relevant due, in large part, to dismal polling.
“Today ends the story of the Five Star Movement,” Matteo Renzi, the former prime minister, tweeted.
Maurizio Cotta, a professor of politics at the University of Siena, told France 24, that the Five Star Movement is in crisis.
“It doesn’t know where to go and it’s facing the loss of a lot of its MPs in next year’s elections,” he said. “Everybody in Five Star is scared.”
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has long forecast that the populist movement in Italy is dead and “the Banksters are in charge.” Indeed, as Gerald Celente has noted—as clearly evidenced by their being the first Western nation to fight the COVID War and enforce some of the most stringent lockdown mandates on earth—the Italian people are obedient and submissive. From small town bureaucracies to the top of their federal leaders, the Italians do what their politicians tell them, and march off to government orders.
Despite both the Five Star Movement and the Northern League, movements that had campaigned on breaking away from the European Union, doing away with the euro, and restoring the lira… both parties voted for Draghi to become prime minister. Thus, the populist movements showed their first cracks in early 2021. (See “ITALY: POPULIST MOVEMENT DEAD PART II.”)
Draghi symbolized the destruction of the anti-euro, anti-eurozone, anti-immigration populist movements when their leaders voted Draghi into office.
The populist movement hit its nadir in 2018 but the League party and the Five Star Movement have taken a middle-of-the-road government path ever since.
Cotta told France 24 that Di Maio is essentially “in the club” despite selling sandwiches at the Napoli football stadium before entering politics.
“Imagine being Di Maio, if you know his past,” Cotta told the outlet. “Now he’s minister of foreign affairs. Everything is prepared for him by the foreign ministry—but still, he has opportunities to go around the world, to meet important people. In the end, he’s found a role for himself.”
For his own political viability, he “picked up the idea” that Rome must keep its ties to Europe because “that is where Italy has always gone.”