Whether the M5S can attain power and lead Italy in a progressive direction remains to be seen, but the party has already softened its criticism of the EU considerably. Di Maio declared after the election,

“It’s not time to leave the euro anymore and the Movement doesn’t plan to exit the European Union.” He also stated that the M5S “does not want to have anything to do with Europe’s extremist parties,” and desires “maximum dialogue with European government forces.”

Simona Guerra, an associate professor of politics at the University of Leicester, U.K., explains that the M5S has lim- ited options with respect to eurozone membership, since Article 75 of the Italian constitution prohibits the use of ref- erenda in the authorization or ratification of international treaties. In any case, she says, the movement’s attitude on such matters “can be best described as ‘Euroalternativism,’ a pro-systemic opposition to the EU integration process, supporting the EU, but willing to change the direction of the integration process itself.”

This desire to work from the inside to change the EU will most likely limit M5S’s progressive options. It could also disillusion M5S supporters who voted for an anti-es- tablishment party, thus opening political space for what Guerra calls an “anti-anti party.”

Could the Potere al Popolo party (Power to the People) fit that description? The PaP took 0.95% of the votes in the March election — not enough for a seat in parliament, but a promising start, according to the party’s 37-year-old spokes- person, Viola Carofalo. Potere al Popolo was launched three months before the election as an anti-capitalist, communist, socialist, feminist and pro-immigrant party, and draws much of its support from young voters, mainly in the south of Italy.

“What we desperately need in Italy is a political renewal, and this necessarily means a politics led by the young, by women, by people of colour, by diversely abled people, by people who are in politics because they believe in change and not because it has become a career,” Carofalo told Jacobin magazine in March.

Accused by some of splitting the left vote, Carofalo claims her party’s priority is not, primarily, elections, “but rather getting people to participate in politics and in rebuilding communities, in rebuilding solidarity within our society.” She says Potere al Popolo is making links with similar groups across Europe, including France Insoumise and Podemos (in Spain), who are seizing power back from “career politicians,” including those on the traditional left.

The message may sound as populist as anything the League or M5S put out, but, as they say, “When in Rome….” Carofalo and other European progressives are struggling to grasp the enormity of the challenge at hand. Rather than mourning the “death of liberal democracy,” as so many mainstream columnists have been of late, these new left leaders are engaged in the hard work of building solidarity across classes, generations and cultures.

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This article was also published by The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Asad Ismi covers international affairs for the CCPA Monitor where this article was originally published. He has written extensively on Asian geopolitics. For his publications visit www.asadismi.info.

Asad Ismi is a frequent contributor to Global Research.