The firebrand leader of Italy's main
Euroskeptic party on Monday raised suspicions of a widespread
conspiracy behind his loss at European elections last weekend.
In what he called a "rape of logic," 5-Star Movement (M5S)
chief Beppe Grillo suggested "fraud" was behind the outcome of
Italy's European Parliament vote in which the center-left
Democratic Party (PD) of Premier Matteo Renzi captured more than
40% of the vote, practically twice what the second-place M5S
won.
Leading up to the vote, Grillo threatened an overwhelming
defeat of the PD, claiming at times his party's own pollsters
had calculated over 90% of the electorate was in his hands,
despite opinion polls that put him about 7% behind the PD.
By late Sunday, May 25, Italian exit polls showed the PD
was coming away with a victory.
But Grillo suspects the game was rigged, pointing to
"official Italian exit polls in Great Britain" he said are
"still banned in Italy" but "easily found online".
Those numbers, which were not sourced on his blog post, put
the PD at 28.8% and the M5S at 29.9% as of 20:00 Italian time on
May 25.
"What happened?!" said the comic turned politician.
On Monday Grillo demanded an audit of the vote and called
for an "anti-fraud system" in the future to monitor "friendships
and familial relationships of vote counters".
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