M5S open to external candidates-Di Maio

(ANSA) - Rome, January 9 - 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".