M5S is dead says Imola mayor as quits

(ANSA) - Bologna, October 29 - The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) is "dead" after a disastrous showing in Umbria elections where its vote dropped to just over 7% from 33% at the 2018 general election, the M5S mayor of Imola near Bologna said after announcing she was stepping down Tuesday.
    Speaking to local TV station E'-TV, Manuela Sangiorgi said "the M5S no longer exists.
    "It has died, and it died when Gianroberto Casaleggio died," she said referring to the 2009 co-founder with comedian Beppe Grillo and IT guru who died in April 2016.
    "We have seen top roles appropriated by pope without skills or talents, losing six million votes in a year and pretending nothing was wrong." Sangiorgi will make her formal resignation to the city council later Tuesday after just over a year in office.
    Imola is a former fief of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and her election was seen as proving that the M5S was eating into the PD vote.
    The M5S's national polling score was halved during a 14-month government alliance with the anti-migrant Euroskpetic League party of Matteo Salvini.
    Salvini pulled the plug on the M5S-League administration in July hoping to capitalise on a snap vote but was dismayed when the M5S teamed up with traditional foe the PD for a new government, again led by law professor Giuseppe Conte.
    The M5S and the PD decided to team up for their first regional contest in Umbria but were roundly defeated, their candidate coming in 20 points behind the League-led centre-right winner.
    M5S leader Luigi Di Maio, who has come under considerable pressure after the defeat, has said there will be no replication of the M5S-PD alliance in January's election in Emilia-Romagna.
    But Conte has argued that it is too early to rule out an M5S-alliance in the traditionally PD-run region.