Five Star Movement in the context of Populism

The Left in the European Parliament (The Left) is a left-wing political group of the European Parliament established in 1995. Prior to January 2021 it was named the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (French: Gauche unitaire européenne/Gauche verte nordique, GUE/NGL).

The group is mainly composed of democratic socialist parties, as well as some communist parties, the social democratic Greek Syriza and the populist Italian Five Star Movement.

Dario Luigi Angelo Fo (Italian: [ˈdaːrjo ˈfɔ]; 24 March 1926 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian playwright, actor, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. In his time he was "arguably the most widely performed contemporary playwright in world theatre". Much of his dramatic work depends on improvisation and comprises the recovery of "illegitimate" forms of theatre, such as those performed by giullari (medieval strolling players) and, more famously, the ancient Italian style of commedia dell'arte.

His plays have been translated into 30 languages and performed across the world, including in Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Yugoslavia. His work of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s is peppered with criticisms of assassinations, corruption, organised crime, racism, Roman Catholic theology, and war. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, he took to lampooning Forza Italia and its leader Silvio Berlusconi, while his targets of the 2010s included the banks amid the European sovereign-debt crisis. Also in the 2010s, he became the main ideologue of the Five Star Movement, the anti-establishment party led by Beppe Grillo, often referred to by its members as "the Master".

Chiara Appendino (born 12 June 1984) is an Italian politician and sports manager, mayor of Turin and the Turin metropolitan city from 30 June 2016 to 27 October 2021 and vice president of the Italian Tennis Federation from 2 October 2020. She is a member of the Five Star Movement (M5S).

Giuseppe Piero "Beppe" Grillo (Italian: [ˈbɛppe ˈɡrillo]; born 21 July 1948) is an Italian comedian, actor, blogger, and politician.

He has been involved in politics since 2009 as the co-founder (together with Gianroberto Casaleggio) of the Italian Five Star Movement political party. Grillo became one of the most prominent examples of the populist surge which arose in Europe during the 2010s.

Gianroberto Casaleggio (Italian pronunciation: [dʒanroˈbɛrto kazaˈleddʒo]; 14 August 1954 – 12 April 2016) was an Italian entrepreneur and political activist. He was co-founder and chairman of Casaleggio Associati srl, an internet and publishing company that advises on network strategies. He was editor of Beppe Grillo's blog, and together they founded the Five Star Movement, of which Casaleggio was sometimes called the "guru".

In the Italian context, Casaleggio promoted the Web as a medium for political communication.

General elections were held in Italy on 24 and 25 February 2013 to determine the 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the 315 elective members of the Senate of the Republic for the 17th Italian Parliament. The centre-left alliance Italy Common Good, led by the Democratic Party (PD), obtained a clear majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies thanks to a majority bonus that effectively trebled the number of seats assigned to the winning force and narrowly defeated the centre-right alliance of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in the popular vote. Close behind, the new anti-establishment Five Star Movement of comedian Beppe Grillo became the third force, well ahead of the centrist coalition of outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti. In the Senate, no political group or party won an outright majority, resulting in a hung parliament.

In April 2013 a grand coalition was formed, consisting of Italy Common Good, the Berlusconi coalition and the centrists. Berlusconi and his allies withdrew support of the coalition and formed a new Forza Italia six months later, which meant that the PD dominated the government coalition until the 2018 Italian general election.

Virginia Elena Raggi (Italian pronunciation: [virˈdʒiːnja ˈraddʒi]; born 18 July 1978) is an Italian lawyer and politician who served as Mayor of Rome from 2016 to 2021. A member of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), Raggi was first elected to the Rome city council in 2013. Raggi led her party to victory in the 2016 municipal election, becoming the first woman and first M5S member elected mayor of Rome. Following the M5S' defeat in the 2021 Rome municipal election, Raggi left office as mayor.

The 2018 Italian general election was held on 4 March 2018 after the Italian Parliament was dissolved by President Sergio Mattarella on 28 December 2017. Voters were electing the 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the 315 elective members of the Senate of the Republic for the 18th legislature of the Italian Republic since 1948. The election took place concurrently with the Lombard and Lazio regional elections. No party or coalition gained an absolute majority in the parliament, even though the centre-right coalition won a plurality of seats as a coalition, and the Five Star Movement (M5S) won a plurality of seats as an individual party.

The centre-right coalition, whose main party was the right-wing League led by Matteo Salvini, emerged with a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate, while the anti-establishment M5S led by Luigi Di Maio became the party with the largest number of votes. The centre-left coalition, led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of the governing Democratic Party (PD), came third; however, no political group or party won an outright majority, resulting in a hung parliament.

Luigi Di Maio (Italian pronunciation: [luˈiːdʒi di ˈmaːjo]; born 6 July 1986) is an Italian politician who has been serving as EU Special Representative for the Gulf region since 1 June 2023. Di Maio also served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2019 to 2022, as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Economic Development, Labour and Social Policies from 2018 to 2019, and as Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies in the 17th Italian legislature.

From September 2017 to January 2020, Di Maio was the leader of the Five Star Movement, an anti-establishment party founded by Beppe Grillo. He resigned from this position to quell discontent and stem the flow of party desertions and expulsions after he led the party into coalition with the centre-left Democratic Party. In June 2022, Di Maio left the M5S due to tensions with Giuseppe Conte, founding his own political group, Together for the Future (IpF). IpF had a brief life, being disbanded following a poor performance in the 2022 Italian general election (in which it ran within the Civic Commitment electoral list alongside Democratic Centre).

The first Conte government was the 65th government of the Italian Republic. It was led by Giuseppe Conte, an independent, and it was in office from 1 June 2018 to 5 September 2019.

The cabinet was formed by a coalition between the Five Star Movement and the League, but it also contained some independents proposed by each party (including the Prime Minister). It was referred to as the "government of change" (Italian: governo del cambiamento) after the title of the political agreement signed by the two parties, or the "yellow-green government" (governo gialloverde), based on their customary colours, even if the League originally preferred "yellow-blue government" (governo gialloblu), due to its new campaign colour under Salvini's leadership.

The second Conte government was the 66th government of the Italian Republic and the second government led by Giuseppe Conte. The government was sworn in on 5 September 2019 to 13 February 2021.

The government was supported by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), along with the leftist parliamentary group Free and Equal (LeU). On 17 September 2019 the centrist party Italia Viva (IV), which splintered from the PD on that day, announced its support for the coalition, as well.

Early general elections were held in Italy on 25 September 2022. After the fall of the Draghi government, which led to a parliamentary impasse, President Sergio Mattarella dissolved Parliament on 21 July, and called for new elections. Regional elections in Sicily were held on the same day. The results of the general election showed the centre-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy, a national-conservative party, winning an absolute majority of seats in the Italian Parliament. Meloni was appointed Prime Minister of Italy on 22 October, becoming the first woman to hold the office.

In a record-low voter turnout, Meloni's party became the largest in Parliament with 26% of the vote; as per the pre-election agreement among the centre-right coalition parties, she became the prime ministerial candidate supported by the winning coalition. The League and Forza Italia suffered losses, polling 8% each, and Us Moderates polled below 1%. The centre-left coalition slightly improved its 2018 results in terms of vote share and seats in percentage with the Democratic Party polling 19% and the Greens and Left Alliance passing the 3% threshold; More Europe and Civic Commitment failed to reach the election threshold. The Five Star Movement defied single-digit polls before the campaign and reached 15%. The Action – Italia Viva alliance polled 7%. Among the others to be represented in Parliament were two regionalist parties: South calls North and the South Tyrolean People's Party. Due to the Rosatellum and its mixed electoral system using parallel voting, the centre-right coalition was able to win an absolute majority of seats, despite receiving 44% of the votes, by winning 83% of the single-member districts under the first-past-the-post of the system.

The 2024 Sardinian regional election took place in Italy's Sardinia region on 25 February 2024. The election was for all 60 elected seats of the Regional Council of Sardinia, as well as the president of Sardinia, who automatically became a member of the Regional Council. The election was won by Alessandra Todde, who also became the first female president of Sardina. It was the first election of the 2024 Italian regional elections.

A member of the Five Star Movement, Todde led the centre-left coalition to a narrow win at 45.4% over the centre-right coalition and Brothers of Italy candidate Paolo Truzzu at 45.0%, with Renato Soru finishing a distant third at 8.7%. It was the first time since the 2015 Campania regional election that the centre-left coalition unseated a centre-right coalition regional president. Although Truzzu was not the incumbent president, having taken the place of Christian Solinas, the incumbent president since 2019 and member of the Sardinian Action Party, which is nationally allied with the League and affiliated to the centre-right coalition, it was still the centre-left coalition's first regional gain since 2015. It was the first election since the 2018 Lazio regional election where the winner of the presidential election did not win the plurality in the party vote due to split-ticket voting.

Alessandra Todde (born 6 February 1969) is an Italian politician who is the current President of Sardinia, the first woman to hold the office. Prior to her tenure as president she was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 2022 to 2024, and vice president of the Five Star Movement (M5S) from 2021 to 2023. She held positions within the Second Conte and Draghi governments

The leader of the Five Star Movement is the de facto and/or de jure leader and guide of the M5S, a political party in Italy, founded in October 2009 by Beppe Grillo and Gianroberto Casaleggio.