Beppe Grillo speaks: “Conte at the Quirinale?”

“Conte is capable of anything… even of being President of the Republic.” Coming from Beppe Grillo – belin – this is a compliment only to those who do not know Grillo. The remark is, in fact, laughable. On the phone, the founder of the Five Star Movement employs the phrase capable of anything in the sense in which Ennio Flaiano used it – and that was certainly not as a compliment. The reader can fill in the ellipsis. Grillo merely left the space. It took the comedian—now a former (but who knows?) “fuck-you” artist—to make the presidency of the Republic sound like a threat, the last and most reckless of the exploits of a man, Conte, who governed first with the League, then with the PD, and finally took over the Movement by snatching it away from the man who had invented it. “Capable of anything,” indeed.

After all, Beppe stopped calling Giuseppe by his first name ages ago. On good days he’s the Wizard of Oz; on bad days he becomes Reverend Jones. Nicknames like these aren’t the sort of thing someone who’s stepped aside would come up with, and Grillo, judging by his creativity, clearly feels too confined to the sidelines. Some wonder whether the founder, like certain tenors who give a farewell concert every season, might fancy stepping back onto the political stage. To hear him speak, it would seem so. Around him are those asking him to put forward his own list for the elections – people concerned about Conte, shall we say, and his alliance with the left. One can easily imagine these people marching in procession towards Sant’Ilario, Grillo’s home, disappointed by the magician, intimidated by the reverend, ready to support – even financially – a political and Dadaist venture by Beppe. A comeback with a bang. ‘A social experiment’, and an artistic performance. A venture that Grillo – take note – does not rule out at all. The whole affair is less picturesque than it seems. A Grillo-led list wouldn’t actually need to win; it would be enough for it to take a few percentage points away from the Five Star Movement and a few decimal points from the broad coalition. And that would spell the end of Conte’s hopes for the Quirinale, amongst other things. The founder, who had taught the Movement how to add, would thus be imparting its final lesson: that of subtraction.

On the right, after all, Roberto Vannacci is already doing exactly the same thing, and Italy, were there to be a Grillo list, would find itself with a fully-fledged two-party system at last – a general on one side and a comedian on the other, each busy ensuring their old friends lose out. Grillo’s first campaign rally, meanwhile, is almost all set. On Sunday 22nd, in all likelihood, he will be a guest of Fabio Fazio on ‘Che tempo che fa’, on Nove, where the founder will be able to gauge, between the presenter’s attentiveness and the studio audience’s applause, how much of his old following remains. Conte is expected to be watching the programme from home, with the anxious attention one reserves for relatives who return to claim their inheritance. Grillo has said that Conte is ‘capable of anything’, even of becoming President of the Republic. Now it remains to be seen – by Jove – what he himself is capable of.