Towards the 5 star party

2017 is an important year in the short history of the Italian Five star Movement (M5s), both from a symbolic and substantial point of view. Municipal elections held in June marked the end of M5s’s first cycle as a governing actor at the local level, which began in 2012 with its success in the northern city of Parma. Together with the seats gained during regional elections in Sicily in November, the M5s continued its ongoing consolidation in local politics. TheM5s also continued to have enduring problems both on the ground and internally. Furthermore, 2017 is an important year from an organizational perspective, since the M5s witnessed the selection of Luigi Di Maio as candidate for prime minister and leader. The young vice-president of the Camera dei deputati (the Italian Parliament’s lower chamber) embodies the slow, controversial, and largely incomplete shift from an anti-system movement to a (would-be) ruling party. This chapter frames the Five Star project as part of the European populist wave and connects its success with the party’s ability of combining elements of both left-wing and right-wing populism. In particular, this work outlines the M5s’s complex route towards normalization and institutionalization on the eve of the 2018 General Elections.