ITALY: Comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo promises "surprises" in February elections

Record ID: 346738

  • Title: ITALY: Comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo promises "surprises" in February elections
  • Date: 23rd January 2013
  • Summary: (CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** MAN WITH 5-STAR MOVEMENT FLAG MEDIA AND POLICE AROUND COMEDIAN AND POLITICIAN BEPPE GRILLO'S CAMPAIGN CAMPER GRILLO EXITING CAMPER VARIOUS OF GRILLO SURROUNDED BY MEDIA AND SUPPORTERS GRILLO CHEERED AS HE GETS ON STAGE (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) FIVE-STAR MOVEMENT SUPPORTER, ELENA MARTINI, SAYING: "Our hope is to clean up this country thoroughly.
  • Embargoed: 7th February 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVATNLJD8PZ7JYNW1K1B1SA6H1K
  • Story Text: Anti-establishment Five-Star Movement comedian Beppe Grillo is continuing his campaign tour ahead of Italy's February elections with the citizens' movement becoming a force to be reckoned with.
    As the election date nears and stakes get higher, Grillo is promising "surprises" with his alternative programme.
    Grillo's Wednesday (January 23) afternoon rally in Pomezia, outside Rome, also came in timely as a scandal over shady derivatives deals bleeding money at Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena thrust Italy's third-biggest lender into the country's election campaign and risks embarrassing the centre-left over its ties with the bank.
    The nationalisation of banks is among the electoral agenda of Grillo's 5-Star Movement.
    An unlikely contender, Italy's political parties had hoped Beppe Grillo would fade away, but the comic who rails against their corruption and ineptitude and says Italy should default on its debt and quit the euro is going from strength to strength.
    In local elections last May, Grillo's Five-Star Movement shook Italian politics by winning control of the northern city of Parma and several smaller towns, capitalising on voter discontent with economic stagnation and austerity.
    Increasingly popular at a time when support for mainstream parties is slipping, the protest movement - Grillo insists it is not a "party" - campaigns to clean up politics and business, promote clean energy and dismantle monopolies and privileges.
    The movement has a mastery of the Internet and social media that is light years in advance of any of the traditional parties.
    His message of transparency and people power is what many disillusioned Italians need, said rally participant Elena Martini.
    "Our hope is to clean up this country thoroughly. Actually it's not just a hope, I believe in it," Martini said.
    "We can make it, with him. He provides the input and we will act," she added.
    With his mane of unruly white hair and beard, Grillo lays into left and right-leaning parties alike, as well as the collapsed technocrat government of Mario Monti. He dubbed the understated Monti "Rigor Montis", and says he represents the interests of banks rather than citizens.
    Polls say the movement has become Italy's third largest political force and its growing impact echoes the success of outsiders elsewhere in Europe, as the economic crisis has eaten away at the credibility of old-style party systems.
    "There will be surprises. I can feel it on my skin when I tour around Italy that the people are fed up, they can't stand to see all these politicians, they can't even stand looking at them anymore. They can conduct all the polls they want but I have my 'skin-polls' and all the people I know feel the same," Grillo told Reuters in an interview in his campaign camper after the rally in Pomezia.
    Grillo made his name as a stand-up comedian in the northern city of Genoa, but is now far better known for his vitriolic attacks against the ruling classes, usually delivered in a frenzied, hoarse voice before thousands of followers in Italy's piazzas.
    "We are the movement of ideas, not ideologies. For us, there is no left or right, for us there are ideas and the ideas are not right-wing or left-wing, they are either good ideas or stupid ideas," the comedian-turned-politician said.
    Grillo's anti-establishment and anti-banks message gained steam on Wednesday as the derivatives scandal dragged the Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank into the election race.
    The bank, which had to request a 3.9-billion-euro state bailout ($5.2 billion) last year, is widely regarded as close to the centre-left PD party, which is leading in opinion polls and controls the Tuscany region where Monte dei Paschi is based.
    Monte dei Paschi's woes deepened on Tuesday (January 22) after reports it would book a loss of at least 220 million euros due to a 2009 derivative trade with Japanese bank Nomura, one of several deals currently under scrutiny.
    Centre-right and far-left politicians campaigning for next month's vote seized on the scandal to accuse the PD of mismanaging the bank, the world's oldest, and criticise outgoing prime minister Mario Monti for using taxpayer money to save it.
    The bank's executives also face a grilling by Grillo.
    Grillo, a Monte dei Paschi shareholder, said he would attend the bank's extraordinary shareholder meeting on Friday (January 25) to say that the bank should be nationalized.
    "Those who have stolen need to be caught because billions of euros are missing. I don't see why we should give almost 4 billion euros in public money to cover up a bunch of thieves. The thieves should be caught and their assets should be seized. We need to start over and let the state take charge," he said.
    Grillo himself does not run for office, having been convicted for manslaughter after three passengers died when the jeep he was driving skidded off the road in 1981.
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