Beppe Grillo, the leader of the
anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), in a blog post Tuesday
shunned political alliances and said that the M5S is "neither
right nor left".
"We have nothing to do with these ideological categories,"
Grillo said.
"When we talk about universal income they say we're left,
when we talk about support for small and medium enterprise they
say we're right, even though they're the ones who thwarted them.
When we talk about salary cuts we're populists. This is why
we'll never make alliances with the parties that have destroyed
Italy in recent decades," he said.
Grillo said those elected with the M5S have a "well-defined
job: dedicating themselves to fulfilling the programme."
"The programme for the next elections won't be defined by
lawmakers but by (M5S) members. Whoever doesn't agree can pursue
his programme in a different political force," Grillo said.
He said that "communication output" from MPs is agreed upon
with M5S communication directors.
"No one gets concessions," he said.
Meanwhile, in a lengthy post on Facebook "dedicated to
hypocrites", senior M5S lawmaker Alessandro Di Battista said M5S
is "neither pro-Russia nor pro-American".
"The Nobel peace prize (went) to Obama, (who) was a
warmongering president, full stop. You just have to be
informed," he said.
"I can't take the media manipulation and runaway hypocrisy
anymore," he said, adding that accusations of populism following
the election of Donald Trump as US president are "hypocritical
and deeply anti-democratic - it makes me want to vomit".
"Clearly for some people there's only democracy when the
people's choice coincides with their own - otherwise it's called
'populist drift'".
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