(supersedes previous)Rome Mayor
Virginia Raggi said Wednesday that she may meet Beppe Grillo,
the leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), who
is expected in the capital later in the day for talks on her
chaos-hit executive.
"It's possible," Raggi told reporters as she entered City
Hall when asked about the meeting with Grillo.
Luigi Di Maio, a member of the M5S's so-called
'directorate' leadership panel, told Sky television Wednesday
that decisions will be made "soon" regarding Raggi's executive.
The panel on Tuesday called for the heads of four members
of her administration - including her cabinet member for the
environment Paola Muraro, who is under criminal investigation
over her 12-year tenure as a highly paid consultant for the
capital's troubled trash company AMA.
It emerged earlier this week that Muraro has been under
investigation since April and that she told Raggi about it in
July - a fact Raggi and Di Maio, the deputy speaker of the Lower
House, had both denied.
The case is embarrassing for the anti-establishment M5S,
which prides itself on being free of corruption and whose rules
call for members who come under investigation or who otherwise
fail to live up to its moral standards, to be promptly expelled
Indeed, M5S supporters have been among the most critical in
online comments on the situation. The chaos in Rome has also
been cited by opponents as evidence that the movement's claim it
is ready to take power at the national level are false.
"The M5S have not passed the crash test," said Interior
Minister Angelino Alfano of the small New Center Right (NCD)
party.
"They didn't have an air bag and they smashed up".
He was also critical of Di Maio, saying: "Italy needs real
men, not rabbits".
Di Maio replied that traditional parties and the press are
making a mountain out of a molehill and the M5S will "dismantle"
a non-existent case.
Di Maio, often seen as M5S's future candidate for premier,
said a case against him had also been "mounted," referring to
his alleged prior knowledge of the Muraro probe along with
Raggo.
"I want to say some things, not to the media but to the
citizens, to the M5S community, to all those who believe in this
country," Di Maio said on Facebook. "There are many people who,
in this pile of mash-ups, gossip and misreporting, are no longer
able to understand anything, and want answers".
The media conspiracy against the M5S would not stop the
anti-establishment group's drive to overhaul Italian politics,
Di Maio said.
"Truth and humility make us stronger than before," Di Maio
said on his Facebook page.
"Dialogue with honest people is what moves this project
forward. They won't stop us".
Di Maio added that he will join another M5S bigwig,
Alessandro Di Battista, at an event in the seaside town of
Nettuno on Wednesday as part of the latter's Constitution Coast
to Coast tour to campaign for a No vote in an autumn referendum
on the government's reform of Italy's political machinery.
Muraro, meanwhile, may be questioned by Rome prosecutors as
early as next week.
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