Five Star Movement
Italy: Di Maio leaves party – New parliamentary group
Luigi Di Maio himself led the Five Star Movement for almost three years. Photo: Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse via ZUMA Press/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
He is regarded as a supporter of Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s political line on the war in Ukraine. He did not make friends with the Five Star Movement. Now Luigi Di Maio is turning his back on the party. That has consequences.
Following the resignation of Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio from the Five Star Movement, the founding of a new faction in the Chamber of Deputies has been announced.
Chamber President Roberto Fico read out around 50 names of previous five-star members during the plenary session in Rome, including Di Maio, who sits in the Chamber of Deputies. These are now part of the new group Insieme per il futuro (Together for the future).
Di Maio – once leader of the Five Star Movement – left the populist, anti-establishment party after falling out with current party leader and former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. The reason for the quarrels was the party’s position on arms deliveries to Ukraine, which Conte rejects. Di Maio, on the other hand, is considered to support Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s line. The Five Star Movement is part of Draghi’s multi-party government.
Criticism came from the governing parties. “The government must not block itself because of the break in the Five Star Movement,” tweeted the party leader of the right-wing Lega, Matteo Salvini. “Nothing will change for the government,” assured ex-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of the Italia Viva splinter party on Rai Radio 1. The government would not topple.
The situation in the two-chamber parliament changed when Di Maio founded a new party and took his supporters with him. This means that the Five Star Movement is no longer the largest party in the larger Chamber of Deputies, but the right-wing Lega, the newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Stampa calculated in their Wednesday editions. In the smaller Senate, the two parties would have the same number of seats. However, that depends on how many politicians follow Di Maio in his new party. According to media reports, there are more than 60 in total for both chambers.