Anti-establishment 5-Star Movement
(M5S) leader Luigi Di Maio said Tuesday his group was open to
external candidates, as well as those chosen by its online
candidacy process, for the March 4 general election.
He also s aid the M5S was no longer advocating leaving the
eurozone.
Speaking on talk show Porta a Porta, he said opening gup to
external candidates "means giving opportunities to people who
work in schools, associations, to businesspeople, to take part
in our process".
Di Maio said the other parties were picking candidates from
inside their ranks while "we are doing a public selection and we
are identifying the best minds".
Di Maio said that the external candidates, too, would have to
go through the so-called 'parlamentarie' online selection
process.
He said he was thinking of one candidate who has drawn
headlines, Costa Concordia disaster 'hero' commander Gregorio De
Falco. "He too will go through the parlamentarie," Di Maio said.
De Falco was praised for ordering 'captain coward' Francesco
Schettinno to "get back on board, dammit".
Di Maio went on to say that "I don't think that it's any
longer the (right) time for Italy to leave the euro."
He told Porta a Porta host Bruno Vespa that "there will be
more room" for Italy now that "the French-German axis is no
longer as strong as before".
The M5S has long taken a euroskeptic stance and said it would
like a referendum on staying in the eurozone.
In other remarks, Di Maio said the centre-left Democratic
Party (PD) governors of Emilia Romagna, Abruzzo and Lazio are
using Rome's trash crisis for electoral reasons.
"The Emilia region has a cost of 180 euros per tonne, Abruzzo
1590 a tonne.
"We, in order to make Romans save money, choose the region
that has the lowest costs.
"The governors of Emilia-Romagna, Abruzzo and Lazio are in
the same party, they're using Romans for the electoral campaign,
they're cunningly giving interviews and buying time for the
campaign".
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