(see related) Beppe Grillo on Tuesday threatened to withdraw his anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) from parliament over the government's plan to turn the Senate into a leaner assembly of local-government representatives with minimal lawmaking powers. "Why are we staying in Parliament? To let ourselves be duped by supporting a semblance of democracy while these lot stage a coup?," Grillo wrote on his popular blog, which gave life to the Internet-based M5S in 2009. "We'll stay as long as it's possible to impede the coup of the elimination of the elected Senate... if they don't leave us any choice, we'll go".
The M5S won a quarter of the vote in last year's inconclusive general election.
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