IT IS the best and worst of times for the Five Star Movement (M5S), the populist group that is Italy’s main opposition. On the bright side, Matteo Renzi, the former prime minister, resigned on February 19th as leader of the Democratic Party (PD), the dominant party in government and the M5S’s chief rival. Mr Renzi will probably regain control of the PD, but his move highlighted a split between his supporters and critics, some of whom defected on February 28th to a new radical-left parliamentary group. Small wonder the M5S and PD are nearly even in the polls.
But if the M5S’s popularity is clear, its competence is not. The party’s most senior governing officials are two mayors elected last June, Virginia Raggi in Rome (pictured at right), Italy’s biggest city, and Chiara Appendino in Turin (pictured at left), its fourth-biggest. Their performances since could scarcely be more dissimilar.
On February 7th Ms Raggi learned that prosecutors had formally placed her under investigation for a second time. The mayor, who denies wrongdoing, risks indictment for falsifying a document and abuse of her office. Her counterpart in Turin, according...Continue reading
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