The 2017 Five Star Movement leadership election was an Italian online

primary election Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...

held on 21 September 2017 that determined the M5S candidate to the premiership for the

2018 Italian general election The 2018 Italian general election was held on 4 March 2018 after the Italian Parliament was dissolved by President Sergio Mattarella on 28 December 2017. Voters were electing the 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the 315 elective membe ...

. After the election, the 31 years old

Luigi Di Maio Luigi Di Maio (; born 6 July 1986) is an Italian former stadium beverage vendor and politician. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2019 to 2022, as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Economic Development, Labour and Soci ...

was elected candidate to the premiership and political head of the movement.

Background

The party's leader

Beppe Grillo Giuseppe Piero "Beppe" Grillo (; born 21 July 1948) is an Italian comedian, actor, blogger, and politician. He has been involved in politics since 2009 as the co-founder (together with Gianroberto Casaleggio) of the Italian Five Star Movement ...

, would campaign in the 2018 election, but he would not be the candidate for the position of Prime Minister, even if many critics accused him of being, in case of an electoral win, the ''de facto'' head of the government. The Vice President of the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

, was widely considered as the "front runner" and the most likely candidate for the premiership of Italy. Luigi Di Maio had been often labeled as the most pragmatic and "institutional", but also the less populist, Five Star politician; he is the son of a member of the neo-fascist

Italian Social Movement The Italian Social Movement ( it, Movimento Sociale Italiano, MSI) was a neo-fascist political party in Italy. A far-right party, it presented itself until the 1990s as the defender of Italian fascism's legacy, and later moved towards national ...

and he is considered the leader of the moderate and "governmental" faction of the movement. No other leading members of the M5S, such as Alessandro Di Battista (a populist politician, personal friend of Di Maio) or

Roberto Fico Roberto Fico (; born 10 October 1974) is an Italian politician. He is a member of the Five Star Movement, and has been serving as President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 2018 to 2022. Previously, he was the Chairman of the RAI Supervis ...

(leader of the M5S left-wing faction and rival of Di Maio and Di Battista), ran for the office. Di Maio's opponents were the Senator Elena Fattori (Vice President of the 9th Permanent Senate Committee) and six other city councilors. Many of them were almost unknown and this caused a lot of criticism, both from the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

Lega Nord Lega Nord (; acronym: LN), whose complete name is (), is a right-wing, federalist, populist and conservative political party in Italy. In the run-up of the 2018 general election, the party was rebranded as (), without changing its official n ...

and

Forza Italia Forza ItaliaThe name is not usually translated into English: ''forza'' is the second-person singular imperative of ''forzare'', in this case translating to "to compel" or "to press", and so means something like "Forward, Italy", "Come on, Ital ...

, which considered this ballot a false primary election, with the only aim of appointing Di Maio as M5S candidate without any real challenger.Un nome forte e percentuali bulgare: primarie M5s copiate (male) da Pd e Lega
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Candidates

Major candidates

Other candidates

Results

References

{{reflist 2017 elections in Italy Political party leadership elections in Italy Five Star Movement Five Star Movement leadership election