Here it is message long awaited, and heralded, of Beppe Grillo co-founder and guarantor of 5 Star Movement it finally arrived. The Genoese comedian who entered politics speaks with his usual somewhat coded language and a posture between the ironic and the serious: he posts a video with images and soundtrack that contradict each other, but as soon as he intervenes he clarifies the reason. Grillo launches his j’accuses, mentions his projects (which he leaves a mystery for now) from the seat of driving a hearse. The background, however, is Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, which means – and makes it explicit – that the Movement is “extremely dead” killed by the leadership of Giuseppe Conte leader, but can rise again, like the Arabian phoenix, from its humus, from its decomposition.
He does not talk about legal battles explicitly nor does he say how he operationally plans to act. He leaves freedom of vote to the members he has called to express his opinion again on the Statute, and perhaps he could not have done otherwise given that the invitation is his. But at first glance, the opposite readings are given to this. On the symbol it is clear, on both sides of the ‘sides’ that will battle, asking those who follow Conte to form their own party with their own name.
Grillo begins: “I’m optimistic about the vote on December 5th. Go and vote, if you want to go and vote, otherwise you’re going for mushrooms, try to make a good decision. I’m not offended, I don’t even know you anymore, so I also understand the your decision. But try to think that this movement will have a different and wonderful outcome whether you are there or not.” The Guarantor starts with the thrusts: “However, I must speak to you as the Guarantor, as confirmed by the Statute, and therefore as the guardian of the great values of the 5 Star Movement which have disappeared in these three years”.
And again: “Seeing this symbol represented by these people gives me a certain sense of unease. Make yourself another symbol, go ahead and do your things. The Movement is dead, but it is compostable. The humus that is inside is not is dead. This Movement will have another course whether you are there or not”, he says. Giuseppe Conte as the “Wizard of Oz”with the tactic of “never being found” used “the trump card to disintegrate the Movement in its identity”, transforming it “into a progressive little party” with “games and games” on alliances “that not even the Christian Democrats of twenty years ago.”
“Things have been said about me – he continues -. I only asked the Guarantor, as the great custodian of everything, to have control over things: I have not yet received a response. This way of behaving, which you know very well, was the trump card to disintegrate the Movement in its identity”, and there is no lack of a jab at the possible mandate of the former president of the Chamber, Roberto Fico, for the regional elections of Campania. There is doubt about the Constituent Assembly vote which took place on 23 and 24 November and the point remains on the constraint of the ceiling of the two elective mandates: “I disappear precisely because of the two mandates. This vote had 20 questions to cover three of them: that of sending me away, of doing two terms, three or four, and the situation of the president. So, to cover those three questions, twenty were asked, like what is justice, what do you think about healthcare. And then they voted less of half of the members, so I have a doubt”, he continues.
“I have already lost, I know, but I am optimistic because this Movement had an extraordinary identity”, he underlines and recalls: “The identity of the two mandates? We agreed with the Wizard of Oz to make a state law, and furthermore, I added that it was necessary to have the first mandate in the municipalities, because it is in the municipalities that the economic strategy of the future passes, because globalization will be decentralized to the Municipalities. The Municipalities will carry out the only policy that matters”, he continues. There was no official reaction from the headquarters of the 5 Star Movement in via Campo Marzio. There is no shortage of hot-button ones from parliamentarians and officials: “Grillo who?”, says a five-star representative and, rather angry, replies “but do us a favor. Where was he in these seven years while we were making our ass”… . against the Caste? He just left us alone.”
The battles that he claimed in the video as his proposals that never reached Conte “are the ones that we have fought and for which his territories, and without honors, our activists are fighting”, is another of the reactions. And it’s not enough, there are those who make even broader arguments, albeit in the heat of the moment. There are those who believe that Grillo is actually very worried and hides it behind the tone of someone who plays the victim by saying “I know that I have already lost”. In short, he puts his hands forward after having carried out what is considered a boycott practice not only towards Conte but towards the entire Movement, antagonizing the community at every possible appointment, whether electoral or otherwise.
“It’s serious that you despise those who ‘get away with it’ by telling them ‘I don’t even know you'”, they still observe from the ranks of the Movement. The choice to give freedom to vote? He could not have done otherwise because, it is observed, if he had preached abstention he would have betrayed himself twice, having asked to revote and always preached direct democracy, but he remains ambiguous in contemplating the choice to go for mushrooms. Was he left alone? Lies, the voices of the loyalists still say: it was he, they note, who only brought together the ‘fireplace’, which was confined to the Forum hotel and many of the parliamentarians knew his moves through the media.
As for the symbol: for now the battle is political. Let’s see what he will do, is the reasoning, but with the certainty that if he were to challenge ownership he would come out a loser. Another camp, another tone, among those who actually sided with Grillo: one for all, the former M5s parliamentarian Marco Bella: “For Beppe the vote changes nothing, given that already less than half of the members, that is 80,000 out of the original 160,000, did not participate. That vote cannot be considered politically legitimate in any case. The outcome is important only for Conte-Oz and for those who still believe in him.” The symbol? “From Grillo – he assures – comes a clear reference to the fact that he will do everything to take it away from these people”.
The Movement
It was March 11, 2022 when the new statute of the M5s following the elimination of the movement’s leaders after the lawsuit filed in Naples by a group of activists and former members of the first meet up.
A legal precedent. And a new legal battle is what Grillo could announce in today’s message. An initiative that could lead, according to the suspicion of several Five Star Movement members, to the desire to renounce the legal ‘coverage’ to blow up the contract signed with Giuseppe Conte. A further tear, then. The former prime minister has repeated it several times: the M5s founder cannot claim the mark which is the property of the entire community.
But we wait a coup of theater by those who contested Nova’s resultsthe event held at the Palazzo dei Congressi in Rome, and the deliberations