The M5S was created to get citizens participating in public life. It’s not a party and it doesn’t want to be one. It has no headquarters. It has no money. It doesn’t want all that. It’s got a programme, and a Non-Statute. Anyone who agrees with the programme can use its symbol to create a list and to have my support out in the streets and via the blog. It’s not obvious why anyone who doesn’t agree with the programme would want to be a part of M5S. No one is forcing them to join.
Anyone elected must demonstrate maximum transparency in relation to the voters, who are their judge and their reference point. If a councillor is tired or if he has personal commitments, he can pass on the baton to another person on the list. He’s a spokesperson, he’s passing through. He’s a civilian volunteer. The M5S is a virus, not an armchair.
I’m going over these points because some of those who have come close to the M5S have mistaken it for a party, and obviously they feel uncomfortable.
The discussion that follows is taken from a private forum (transparency?) on which some M5S councillors have participated. I was gobsmacked when I read this.

Discussion:
"…
- First councillor:
“I no longer agree with the lack of solidity in the ideas behind the organisation. These things will continue happening if there’s no change of step. The energy I have to tackle this is about to be exhausted. We are tearing each other to pieces, originating in chaos, even cultural chaos that is surrounding us.
- Second councillor:
I’m quoting what has been said: the lack of organisation is causing the implosion of the 5 Star MoVement. I’m ever more convinced that the will of Casaleggio and Grillo is ever more aimed at the implosion of the MoVement in spite of so many great young people who have thrown their hearts, their identities and frequently their all, into it.”
- Third councillor:
“I worry that rather than the wish in that direction, there’s the wish to carry out “an experiment” ... it’s just that we are the guinea pigs and I personally am not that keen.”
- Fourth councillor:
“An army of ants is the perfect organisation, but they don’t even know it. They are born to do that. This was to have been the famous network. What’s happened to it? Lost in the fog ....?
- Second councillor:
“I didn’t want to talk about an “experiment” but I think exactly like you. We are great guinea pigs under glass ....”
...
- Third councillor:
“I believe that we have had the skill and the luck to have created something that is a bit more homogeneous in our region and we have to take a few extra steps to try and understand if there’s the same skill and the will to take us as an example so that each one can adapt to their own region. In simple words, I believe that it’s up to us to take a few steps.”
“What are the rules to be followed? The non-statute and that’s it? The non-statute and Beppe’s posts? I believe that the only rules are the non-statute and those strategic choices that have then been largely validated by the grass roots (like, for example, renouncing on having the reimbursement of election expenses). Other “rules” posted on the blog, I don’t think they are rules until there is some mechanism (using electronic devices or otherwise) that can allow it to be understood whether the activists agree with those proposals or not. Always everything going through the involvement of the groups spread across the territory given that anyone can write on the blog.”
...
- Fifth councillor:
“.... don’t let off steam on the Facebook fora!! Do it among trusted friends.”
- Fourth councillor: “If Casaleggio had written the first post in a more delicate manner, instead of thinking of giving pleasure to the shittiest fringe in the country, all this would not have happened. A fringe that at the most, gifts us a few extra extremists. Thanks Casaleggio. Thanks Beppe. Then you want to publish authoritative commentators on the topic. You could have published them before, stupid.”
- Sixth councillor:
“However we certainly have two swollen balls ....”
- Second councillor:
“More than that! I’ve got a fourth!”
- First councillor:
“Fifth”
- Fourth councillor:
“Sixth”
“It’s time to ask for the editorial head of Casaleggio.”

I would like to say one more time that the editorial responsibility of the blog is exclusively mine. And that the town and regional programmes have not been written by me and the staff but directly by the list. Now there’s going to be two days in Rimini called by the mythical 5 Star citizens (who are they?) in the name of the M5S. The list of the points to be discussed is worthy of the best party-ocracy with the final proposal of an M5S leader. If we don’t change, it’s best to forget politics. Beppe Grillo