Italy’s local elections are the latest vote to reflect anti-establishment discontent, but it’s important not to interpret these results as a simple ‘anti-austerity’ vote, or, for that matter, a sign that Italians are getting ready to ditch the euro. Disillusion with Italy’s political class has any number of causes, and is capable of jumping on any vehicle that’s going.

Via the Guardian:

The Italian comedian Beppe Grillo has promised that his fledgling party is heading for parliament after his candidates rode a wave of protest against austerity politics and Italy’s traditional parties in local elections.
“We will see you in parliament,” he tweeted, suggesting his Five Star Movement party will field candidates in national elections in 2013.
The comic campaigns on green issues, fights corruption and has recently criticised Mario Monti’s unpopular tax hikes, as well as claiming Italy should ditch the euro. His party took 14% of the vote in Genoa, 9% in Verona and 19% in Parma, where it forced the mainstream Democratic party into a runoff.
In all those towns, Grillo’s mayoral candidates trounced Silvio Berlusconi’s Freedom People party, which was subjected to humiliating defeats in its first electoral contest since the former prime minister stepped down to make way in November for Monti’s technocrat government, which did not stand in the elections. In Parma, where the Berlusconi-backed administration has been hit by a corruption scandal, the party polled a meagre 4.7%.
Berlusconi, who has kept a low profile this year, decided to attend Vladimir Putin’s swearing in as Russian president in Moscow instead of awaiting results in Italy. His former defence minister, Ignazio La Russa, blamed his party’s defeat on its “mania” for “pretty faces” – a central tenet of Berlusconi’s political ethos.
Turnout was down by just over 6% to 67% among the 9.5 million Italians eligible to vote in the 942 municipalities contested.
But apart from Grillo’s anti-tax rhetoric, the election did not give a clearcut verdict on Monti’s package of spending cuts and tax hikes…

Grillo is sometimes described as Italy’s Michael Moore. That’s not a good thing.