The Local

M5S leader Luigi Di Maio delivers a speech during the presentation of the movement's parliamentary candidates. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP Italy's Five Star Movement (M5S), the country's most popular party according to polls, has been accused of plagiarizing a variety of sources in its programme for the March general election. Online newspaper Il Post reported on Wednesday that 11 of the programme’s 20 chapters included material apparently plagiarized from other sources. A full comparison of the M5S manifesto and the unattributed sources can be found on the website in Italian. These sources included articles, parliamentary papers, scientific studies, legal manuals, and even statements made by ri...

Voting in Rome. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP Italy's populist Five Star movement (M5S) on Thursday called for inteational observers to monitor next year's elections, claiming irregularities during Sicily's regional polls. 
 Luigi Di Maio, the party's candidate for prime minister, sent a letter making the request to several officials at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). 
 The OSCE often sends observers to monitor elections, including in the recent French, German and Austrian votes. 
 In the letter, Di Maio, 31, pointed to alleged irregularities during the November 5th election in Sicily. 
 "Cases of vote-buying and fraud were observed,"...

Luigi Di Maio speaks during a press conference in 2014. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP Members of Italy's populist Five Star Movement were on Thursday voting for a PM candidate the party hopes will beat the traditional parties to the job of ruing the country in next year's elections. Hot favourite Luigi di Maio, 31, the movement's most popular politician, is ruing in an inteal ballot aga...

Giancarlo Cancelleri, pictured in 2012, was selected as the party's candidate for regional goveor. Photo: AFPA court in Palermo has 'suspended' the result of the regional primaries of the Five Star Movement party, presenting a potential setback just two months ahead of the Sicilian regional elections. The 'regionarie' - an online vote among Five Star members - took place in July to select its ca...

Raggi pictured earlier this week. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFPRome mayor Virginia Raggi has dramatically changed her tune on migration in recent weeks, in a shift to the right echoed by the Five Star Movement party's leader Beppe Grillo. The shift gives an insight into how both party politics and the...

Five Star Movement leader Beppe Grillo pictured during a speech. Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFPUPDATED: Italy's anti-establishment Five Star Movement suffered a setback on Sunday after exit polls and early results from local elections showed they failed to advance to the second round of voting in any o...

The Five Star movement's founder Beppe Grillo aounced his opposition in an editorial. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFPThe populist Five Star movement, which has mayors in Rome and Turin, has clearly stated it is against the Italian capital hosting the 2024 Olympic Games. The party made the stuing gains in June in a stinging blow for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and although M5S mayor for Rome, Virginia Raggi, has not publicly voiced her opposition, a blog by the party's founder Beppe Grillo on Sunday clearly said it was against the city bidding for the Games. An editorial titled "The Games in Rome? No thank you!" said they would only serve to "condemn the future of youths to debt and act as a powerf...

It was supposed to be the start of something big. When the Five Star Movement won the keys to Rome's City Hall in June, all the talk was of the anti-establishment movement founded by comic Beppe Grillo starting to look like Italy's govement in waiting. Two months later the party is in crisis, its credibility on the line because the beleaguered new mayor, Virginia Raggi, has still not finalized a team to run the city she vowed to start cleaning up from day one.Fed up with chaos and corruption in their public services, Romans swept Raggi into power to chants of "Onesta, Onesta" (Honesty, Honesty), Five Star's rallying cry. Photo: AFPBut the themes that dominated the election have come back to ...

Italy's Five Star Movement (MS5) is now the country's most popular political party. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFPLast month, in a decision that shocked many observers, the majority of the British people voted to leave the European Union. It was a slap in the face to the established political elites, the majority of whom had strongly supported the “Remain” campaign. The Brexit referendum was a historic moment that will not only redefine the future of the United Kingdom, but also “rattle the Continent and rock political establishments throughout the West”. Eurosceptism is deep-rooted throughout the Union. About one-third of the current 751 MEPs in the European Parliament in Strasbourg are represen...

(L) Chiara Appendino, mayor of Turin and (R) Virginia Raggi, mayor of Rome. Photos: Marco Bertorello/Filippo Monteforte/AFPFounded by comedian Beppe Grillo, the radical Five Star Movement burst onto the political scene in 2009, in the middle of Italy’s financial crisis. With Silvio Berlusconi still at the helm, for the next four years the party worked tirelessly, mostly using the inteet, to reflect the palpable change in mood among Italians - that they were fed up with the ruling class. In February 2013, the party became the second biggest political force in Italy behind the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) after scooping 25 percent of the vote in the general election. During the intervenin...

Italy's Five Star Movement (MS5) is now the country's second most popular political party. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFPItaly's anti-establishment Five Star movement (M5S), riding high on a first round victory in Rome's mayoral race and the second biggest political force in the country, is a broad church, lying outside the traditional left-right paradigm. Where does the movement come from? It was founded by wild-eyed and dirty-mouthed comedian Beppe Grillo in 2009as a radical alteative to established politicians and institutions in acountry weighed down by corruption. It eschewed traditional political chaels and the media for civic listsand citizen meet-ups, embracing the expletive "vaffanculo" ...