M5s, Grillo's 'party' would take away at least a third of Conte's votes

Beppe Grillo dissolves his reservations and is about to also legally claim the symbol of 'his' M5s ('make your own symbol, do your own thing', is the challenge issued to Giuseppe Conte & C). But to do what with it? Perhaps 'put it in a display case', as he confides to the few remaining loyalists around him. The reality is that the founder and (former?) Guarantor of the movement declares himself tired and seems at the moment only to want to wrest his creature from the hands of the usurper, forcing him to create a new 'Conti' party to his measure. Of the series: the movement is dead, let Samson die with all the Philistines. Yet those who know him well, like former senator Elio Lannutti, warn that Grillo is unpredictable. And certainly the desire to 'hurt' Conte is not lacking. In the name of the principles of the origins 'destroyed' by the former premier (limit to mandates, direct democracy, integral ecologism, otherness with respect to the traditional parties) he could also try a new adventure with the loyalists (Danilo Toninelli, Virginia Raggi and perhaps Alessandro Di Battista).

But how many votes could a Grillo party take? The pollster Antonio Noto immediately sounded out the mood of the Pentastellati voters by asking them which party they would choose if two parties, one of Conte and one of Grillo, were to present themselves at the next political elections. And the results, made public late in the evening during Bruno Vespa's Porta a Porta programme, are somewhat surprising: 65% of those interviewed would choose Conte and as many as 28%, almost a third, Grillo (2% do not know and 5% would not vote for either party, believing that the experience is over). Translated into percentages, since at the moment Noto estimates the M5s at 11% nationally, it would mean 7% to Conte and 4% to Grillo.

A Grillo party, according to this data, would in short hurt Conte and the contiani. Even taking into account the fact that the percentage could eventually turn out to be higher if the founder were to win the legal dispute over the name and symbol (Noto playfully asked the interviewees a generic question on this point). Historical 'brands', it is known, also have their affective value in politics. The least that can be said is that for Conte, who at the weekend will be forced to repeat the vote on the abolition of the figure of the Guarantor and other changes to the statute requested by Grillo with the risk of not reaching the quorum of 50% plus one of the members a second time, a judicial and political via crucis begins with unpredictable outcomes. Via crucis that even the PD is watching with concern: a possible split of the M5s would reduce the already falling consensus of what is currently the main ally of the secretary Elly Schlein to build the government alternative.