Five Star leader open to coalition talks despite founder's warning

One person notably absent from the Five Star Movement’s triumphant celebrations at a plush hotel in Rome in the early hours of Monday morning was Beppe Grillo, the comedian who less than a decade ago founded the party that seized the biggest share of the vote in Sunday’s inconclusive election.

Instead, the 69-year-old was pondering biodegradability in what appeared to be a metaphorical plea for his party to remain “unpolluted” and, if need be, return to its roots as an opposition force.

In a blogpost he congratulated the party, now led by 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio, a former waiter, but warned of the dangers of it being changed by its victory.

Grillo, who was instrumental in turning the movement built by a rabble of rebels into Italy’s strongest political force, said in January that unless it won an outright majority in the election it should remain in opposition. “It would be like saying that a panda can eat raw meat. We only eat bamboo,” he said of the prospect of sharing power.

But Di Maio, said to have been groomed by Grillo for the leadership, has other ideas. On Monday he said he was open to talks with all political parties, and he has already presented his would-be cabinet – a list of what he calls “anti-politicians”.

“Grillo remains the last major obstacle to Di Maio’s plan,” said Jacopo Iacoboni, a journalist at La Stampa and author of The Experiment, a book about the Five Star Movement. “But victory is so strong and the power of the numbers so astonishing that it will be tough even for Grillo to stop Di Maio’s plans.”

Source: theguardian