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Italy’s anti-establishment 5-Star suffers local election beating

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ROME: Italy’s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement suffered a resounding defeat in local elections, results released on Monday showed, even though national polls say it is the country’s most popular party.


Five-Star candidates came in third or fourth in Parma, Verona, Palermo, L’Aquila, Catanzaro, Lecce, Taranto and Genoa, birthplace of the movement’s founder, comic Beppe Grillo.


National elections are due in Italy by the first half of next year and could be held as early as this autumn, meaning Sunday’s vote in 1,000 towns and cities was an important test of political strength.


Newspaper headlines and pundits pounced on the results, saying the 5-Star might have peaked, but Grillo shot back on Monday, confidently predicting his group would bounce back.


“Everyone is gloating, putting forward rarefied analysis on the death of the 5-Star and the return of a bipolar (political) system,” Grillo wrote on his blog.


“Convince yourself this is true so you can sleep more soundly. We will continue forward on our path.”


The party had hoped to build on last year’s election successes, when it took control of 19 large towns and cities, including Rome. But its rule in the capital has been mired in controversy, and its grassroots operations elsewhere have been snarled by internal feuding.


Despite its local difficulties, the most recent opinion polls taken ahead of Sunday’s vote say the 5-Star would win more than 30 per cent in a national race, just ahead of the ruling Democratic Party (PD) led by former prime minister Matteo Renzi.


Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the far-right Northern League — long-time allies but with increasingly diverging political agendas — trail with less than 15 per cent each.


The centre-right fared strongly on Sunday where Forza Italia and the League put aside their divisions and ran together, taking the lead in 13 of the 24 main municipal races. A run-off ballot between the two leading candidates is due on June 25.


— Reuters


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