Europe | An imploding star

Italy’s oddest political party is splitting

Six years ago it was Italy’s biggest

Photograph: Shutterstock
|ROME

IT IS A fair bet that any party that finds itself holding a “constituent assembly” more than 15 years after its foundation has problems. The Five Star Movement, which is to stage just such an event on November 23rd and 24th, is no exception. The assembly is being held against the background of a bitter split between the party’s founder, Beppe Grillo, and its president, Giuseppe Conte. And in Italy’s latest regional election, last month in Liguria in the north-west, the Five Stars mustered less than 5% of the vote.

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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Fizzling”

From the November 16th 2024 edition

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