For many months M5S has talked about holding a party congress, dubbed “Stati generali” (États généraux), because, you know, “congress” makes it sound like they are a political party.

Although there is no date set as yet, they won’t be able to postpone it for long now. /THREAD/

2/ The party expects to perform badly in forthcoming regional elections (they always have at sub-national level, & they have lost much of their appeal in recent years, too).

Rumours have it that many MPs/senators are ready to jump ship after that.

3/ To retain at least some of them, give the party a purpose & a leader (it has had an acting leader since January) these États généraux will eventually have to be convened.

4/ Decisions on the following are needed:

What does the M5S stand for? Besides being a populist party (which is inscribed in their DNA, but provides a weak foundation upon which to ground a political party), what else do they want to be?

5/ What do they want to be when they grow up?

Who should lead the party – and what kind of leadership should it give itself: Individual? Collegial? Rotating?

6/
What kind of relationship should the party have with “Casaleggio Associati srl”, a private company whose founder run Beppe Grillo's blog, eventually co-founding the M5S with him?

7/ The president of the company (and son of its founder) controls “Rousseau” - the internet platform used to consult M5S members on various issues, including the choice of candidates for election.

8/ In other words, crucial internal procedures of what has been (for a while) the largest party in Italy are “managed” by an association ultimately dependent on a businessman. Is this really sustainable in the long run?

9/ As I have said above, taking decisions on these issues is crucial for the party, which has been in limbo for many months and appears now resigned to an inevitable decline. I have no idea if they’ll manage to reach them all – or, in fact, any of them.

10/ But it strikes me that –given the world we live in– it would not be impossible to devise attractive proposals on issues such as the welfare state, the right of workers and the green economy.

11/ The M5S would be well placed to own all of these themes if it wanted to, but lacks the leaders and the credibility to embark on a successful process of renewal and put forward a credible project to the electorate.

12/ Right now, it's still stuck in 2011/2012 land ("cut the cost of politics!"; "fewer MPs = less corruption!"), completely unable to deal with the fact that we live in a new world now.

13/ The likely outcome is that they will continue to split and jump ship, while what is left of the party hides behind Conte for as long as his popularity lasts, trying to somehow survive alongside those other Masters of Indecision from the PD.

/END/