Comic-turned political agitator and leader of the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement Beppe Grillo arrives for a press conference in Rome, Sunday, April 21, 2013. Italy’s Parliament on Saturday re-elected Giorgio Napolitano to an unprecedented second term as president, after party leaders persuaded the 87-year-old to serve again in hopes of easing the hostility that has thwarted formation of a new government. While Napolitano’s election received a standing ovation from lawmakers and plaudits from abroad, several thousand people protested noisily outside Parliament Saturday, disappointed that Italy’s old political guard hadn’t changed. Lawmakers from Parliament’s third-largest bloc, the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement led by comic-turned-political agitator Beppe Grillo, galvanized supporters for the protest. Grillo had backed a left-leaning constitutional law expert for president. Grillo and his fast-growing movement are bitterly opposed to the incumbent, who in late 2011 appointed Monti and a Cabinet of technocrats to replace an elected premier as the eurozone debt crisis threatened to engulf Italy. (AP Photo/Roberto Monaldo, Lapresse)
ROME (AP) — A day after Italy’s president was re-elected to an unprecedented second term, the leader of an anti-establishment movement says citizens’ patience with traditional parties is wearing thin.
Beppe Grillo, a comic who heads the Five Star Movement, has dismissed President Giorgio Napolitano’s re-election as a bid by doomed parties to hang onto power.
Grillo, whose party is the No. 3 bloc in Parliament, predicted in Rome on Sunday that traditional parties would “last a year.”
The mainstream blocs are still bickering over how to form the next government two months after inconclusive national elections. Napolitano was re-elected Saturday after Parliament’s mainstream parties couldn’t agree on a new personality. Napolitano could tap someone to try to form a governing coalition this week.
