Five Star Movement

The Five Star Movement (Italian: Movimento 5 Stelle, M5S) is a political party in Italy. Its leader and president is Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy from 2018 until 2021. The M5S was founded on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a political activist and comedian, and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web strategist. The party is primarily described as populist, of the syncretic kind, due to its members' insistence that it has no place in the left–right political spectrum. The party is a proponent of progressivism, green politics, and direct democracy.

From 2014 to 2017, the M5S was a member of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group in the European Parliament, along with the UK Independence Party and minor Eurosceptic parties. In January 2017, M5S members voted in favour of Grillo's proposal to join the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group but the party was eventually refused, and has since sat as Non-Inscrits in the European Parliament.

In November 2014, Grillo appointed a "directory" composed of five leading M: Alessandro Di Battista, Luigi Di Maio, Roberto Fico, Carla Ruocco, and Carlo Sibilia. It lasted until the following October when Grillo dissolved it and proclaimed himself the political head of the M5S. From the foundation until 2021, Grillo also formally served as president of the association named "Five Star Movement"; his nephew Enrico Grillo served as vice-president and his accountant Enrico Maria Nadasi as secretary. In the 2017 M5S leadership election, Di Maio was voted in an online primary with 82% of the vote as political head and candidate for Prime Minister, while Grillo continued to be M5S's "guarantor". In January 2018, Grillo separated his own blog, which was used the party's online newspaper, with the brand-new Blog delle Stelle. After the 2021 M5S leadership election, a new statute was approved and Conte became the new president, while Grillo continued to be the guarantor of the movement. During the years, the M5S went through several splits, most recently and notably in June 2022, when Di Maio formed Together for the Future.

In the 2013 Italian general election, the M5S was the second-most popular single party and the third-most popular grouping, behind the centre-left coalition and the centre-right coalition. The M5S turned down a coalition offer with the centre-left coalition and entered opposition. In 2016, Chiara Appendino and Virginia Raggi, both members of the M5S, were elected mayors of Turin and Rome, respectively. The M5S opposed the reforms proposed in the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum. In the 2018 Italian general election, the M5S became the largest party in the Italian Parliament, and has since been part of government with both right-wing and left-wing coalitions. The 2022 Italian general election saw a strong decrease in support for the party, which scored 15% and was the third most voted party but due the electoral law was the fourth party by seats in Parliament, where they sat at the opposition. Thanks in part to a strong performance in southern Italy, the M5S defied single-digits polls in July 2022, and they won single-member constituencies in the South that otherwise would have been won by the centre-right coalition.