Tomorrow in Italy it will take place the second round of the municipality elections in many important cities. In particular, Turin and Rome could become the first big cities with a major of the Movimento 5 Stelle.

In Europe there is already a similar case, in Spain where Podemos already governs Madrid and Barcelona.



Even if it would be easy to compare those two experiences, actually Podemos and M5S are very different.

Podemos is the political expression of the Indignados movement. They first created a network of  mutual support and then part of the movement entered in the political arena. Still now, Podemos is linked to the territory and it has a more left orientation.

M5S has a more top-down structure, where the leader Beppe Grillo plays a key role in all the main political decisions. Moreover, the political view is more ambiguous, touching issues of protest, and some typical perspective from the left and from the right at the same time.

Both Podemos and M5S did probably a mistake at the national level. They decided not to form a government when they could, as they didn't want to negotiate with other political forces. For the Madrid and Barcelona cases, Podemos had to do that, with good results.

We will see what it will happen in Turin and Rome, but for sure a huge change is coming in Italy and we cannot predict the consequences neither locally neither at the national level.