The 5 star Italian is struggling to keep up with the rise of Salvini

ROME (Reuters) – In the March elections, the Five-Star Anti-Settlement Movement became the dominant political force in Italy, allowing it to enter the government for the first time in its history and occupy many ministerial positions.

Five months later, it turns out that governing is much harder than being in opposition.

While its coalition partner, the League, has surpassed it in polls, under the leadership of its media-savvy leader, Matteo Salvini, the 5-Star has seen its own support slip.

Under the leadership of Luigi Di Maio, the party has already had to give up some campaign promises, given the presence of prominent ministers make a very promising start in his government and had trouble repressing his disparate group of parliamentarians.

The 5-star worries, coupled with Salvini's growing popularity, will certainly encourage the far-right League to continue its anti-immigrant agenda, Italy, the first program, convinced that if the coalition s & # 39; It collapsed, it would triumph in an election by sight.

The 5-star chess shows the problems faced by unconventional populist parties that are emerging across Europe as they move from raucous protest movements to mature rulers.

But the first reversals also risk strengthening the determination of the five stars during the confrontation between the government and the European Union in next year's budget, as the government seeks to show its constituents that it has not not lost in his radical passion.

"Salvini has the wind in the sails and the 5-star has more," said Sergio Fabbrini, head of the Department of Political Science at LUISS University in Rome.

"The 5-star has based its election success on promises that are very difficult to fulfill and you can see that it's hard to stay true to itself," he added.

Di Maio, 32, denies that his party is in any difficulty and insists that it has had some early successes, including limiting parliamentary privileges and strengthening workers' rights.

He accused the press of being the victim of 5-star prejudices, denouncing the journalists as "foul jackals", and alleging that the newspapers had the intention of sowing confusion between he and his colleague Deputy Prime Minister Salvini.

"This government enjoys a great consensus in the country and the other parties are far behind us," he told a group of foreign journalists earlier this month.

MEDIA MASTERY

But the polls are more comforting for Salvini than for Di Maio.

While the league won 17% of the vote in March against 32% of the 5-star vote, a poll on November 19th revealed that Salvini's party was on 32.7% of the vote against 26.4% of the votes cast. stars. "For Di Maio.

Daniela Aiuto, a European parliamentarian who last month left the 5-star after a disagreement with her leaders, said Salvini's success was based on her mastery of social media in pursuing her rigorous campaign of crackdown against the government. immigration.

"Luigi (Di Maio) has skills, but the comparison with Salvini is unfortunately one-sided," she told Reuters. "What Luigi says might be important, but what Salvini says is in the news."

Insiders say the two coalition leaders are hearing relatively well, talking to each other daily, and exchanging messages regularly through WhatsApp. But relations between ministers, legislators and experts from both sides are much more strained.

While the League has years of experience in government, at the national and local levels, 5-Star was formed only in 2009 and has far less administrative expertise. Legislators of the League such as Igor Iezzi say that this inexperience can be seen in parliament.

"They must learn to work in coalition. We are not on Facebook, where you read the articles and then change your mind, "Iezzi told Reuters, complaining that his counterparts in the 5-star group were cutting and changing their ideas on the amendments.

"If you work 10 days on an amendment, you can not go back … you have to grow a little bit," he said.

THE DISCIPLINE

Salvini found it easier to muster his parliamentary forces than Di Maio, who tries to enforce order by threatening to expel anyone who rejects the coalition's proposals.

One of these dissidents is Gregorio De Falco, a former Coast Guard commander who is considered a hero in Italy for his role in rescuing survivors of the collapsed Costa Concordia cruise ship in 2012.

His decision to stand as a five-star candidate in the March poll was considered a coup for the party, but he has now voted against the government three times in less than a month, most recently the opponent to an amnesty proposal on illegal construction. on the island of Ischia, affected by the earthquake.

"5-Star was born as an environmental group and we can not forget it now that we are in government," De Falco told Reuters.

The party has already disappointed its environmentalist wing by giving up the campaign pledge to end the construction of the TAP gas pipeline project in the Puglia region.

He explained the turnaround by saying that Italy could have been fined 20 billion euros ($ 23 billion) if it had killed the project and denied knowledge before taking office.

He also angered some of his supporters by letting the steel giant ArcelorMittal buy the Italian steelmaker Ilva in Italy, instead of following through on the promise to close the highly polluting boilers of Puglia.

These decisions dictated by Realpolitik put 5-Star on the defensive and made it determined not to give ground to other battles – especially about its flagship policy, the "salary of the citizen ", a plan of income support for the poor.

The proposal has allowed 5 stars to win up to 50% of the votes in the underdeveloped south and Di Maio insists that it must be presented next year for a cost of 39, about 10 billion euros.

The League, which enjoys broad support from the wealthy north and is ideologically opposed to major social assistance, has accepted the plan in principle, but warns that its implementation will be "complicated".

"This creates permanent tension with the League, but if the plan fails, the 5-Star case would be a disaster and they will do everything in their power to prevent this from happening," said Fabbrini, a professor at the University of California. Luiss University.

5 stars has a major handicap when it comes to imposing one's will on one's partner in the coalition.

In a country that has had 65 governments since the Second World War, coalition parties have regularly threatened to resign from government if they do not get what they want. But such threats from the 5-star would sound hollow.

Under party rules, its legislators can only serve two terms, which means that Di Maio and most party leaders will not be allowed to run in the next election. Analysts believe this means that they will do everything in their power to stay in place.

"Di Maio has every interest in keeping the government even though he can not give him everything he needs. This puts him at a distinct disadvantage for Salvini, "said Fabbrini.