I have to admit complete shameful ignorance about Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement, now the BIGGEST SINGLE "PARTY" in the lower house, Chamber of Deputies. An amazing result, and obviously a real sign of the febrile state of Italian politics . Beyond that facile observation, what else though ? The UK press are treating it all as a joke - presumeably they can't figure it out either from a capitalist perspective. It looks like a very shallowly political populist protest movement exploding out of nowhere - with all the usual tendancies to veer off in a collaborationist /nationalist direction as soon as the pressure of being courted by the state and other traditional parties is applied. Anyone, an Italian poster would be good, with a real handle on what the Five Star Movement actually represents, and the likely direction it will go in ?
Their Programma contains very little details. Some stuff about stopping convicts from holding office (either public or private), some good environmental stuff (generation from renewables, car sharing, bicycle routes/parking, etc..), backtracking on some freedom of information laws, Alfano, electoral reform, etc..
Everywhere else it is shockingly thin - nothing more than ideas on promoting economic growth (certainly nothing that has had the numbers worked through), nothing really about reducing the national debt, nothing really about how M5S would govern. A promise of a vote on euro membership, and then telling the EU that they're responsible for stimulating the Italian economy seem to be the entire policy on European issues.
The whole thing is poorly considered. For example, they promise a reduction in aides/a cap on people employed by representatives, but then when asked how former engineers or doctors can write laws, their reply is that there are plenty of experts in civil employ to assist them.
They've made this big thing during their campaign about how Grillo isn't running for election. He would be unable to hold public office under his own rules due to various convictions for libel and a car accident that he was involved in in the 80's. (Yes, yes, roughly a third of Italians voted for someone who wasn't even standing for office....) But right now, he is negotiating on behalf of M5S about working with the other parties, which is in many ways a role of state.
Italians haven't voted *for* anything. All they have done is voted *against* what's already there. You can't say that they've wasted their vote, but I really hope that M5S can tighten up their manifesto in the next few weeks before they have to start campaigning again.
Of my friends who voted M5S, they're all in the 20-35 age bracket, plus the hippies. Either unemployed or in shit jobs, with several having had to move away from home to find work. Nobody seems particularly worried about the content of the programma, or their ability to govern, they are all just fed up with what the status quo.
I don't have a problem with anything in that. I was going on the basis of something I saw linked to on Facebook. Perhaps it was out of context.
