5Stars' Virginia Raggi, mayor of Rome. The movement's success it partly due to its ability to draw voters from the Left and the Right of the political spectrum 5 things to expect if 5Stars win the Italian elections Anti-establishment movement is ahead in the polls. What would happen if it won?

The Italian anti-establishment 5Star Movement, which is fast becoming the main political challenger to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, on Wednesday presented a series of foreign policy objectives, including the suspension of the migration deal between the EU and Turkey and restoration of diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime.

“Other member states should take this foreign policy platform seriously,” said Mattia Toaldo, senior policy fellow at the London-based European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank. “First, because the 5Star Movement stands a real chance of winning the next elections, and before that to influence Renzi's policy. Secondly, because these positions imply significant shifts [in] Italian positions."

The movement won key local elections in June — in Rome as well as in Turin, a historic Democrat stronghold. And a recent poll shows Italians are rapidly losing confidence in Renzi's government with surveys indicating that the 5Stars are neck and neck with his Democrats. Elections are scheduled for 2018.

There are two main reasons for the 5Stars' success, analysts say: the movement's ability to draw voters from the Left and the Right of the political spectrum, and a refusal to take part in coalitions, which keeps the 5Stars from being dragged down by coalition partners' problems, for example in corruption cases.

The 5Stars, who are in the same European Parliament group as UKIP, were at first seen as strongly Euroskeptic. But following the U.K.'s Brexit vote, they have softened their position.

This fall Italians will go to the polls to vote on constitutional reform. And here is the conundrum: If Renzi loses the vote, he's expected to resign. But if the reform goes through, it will introduce run-offs in national elections and give the party that wins the option to stay out of coalitions — both elements that make a 5Stars victory even more likely.

Born at the same time as Occupy Wall Street, the German Pirate Party and the Spanish Indignados, like all anti-politics movements the 5Stars are critical of the political establishment.

Here are five things to watch out for if the 5Stars win the elections:

1) Controversial foreign policy

The movement's founder, comedian Beppe Grillo, found himself in hot water a few years ago over remarks in support of then Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and claims in an interview with the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth that a "Jewish lobby" controls the information about Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Grillo is stepping aside but some of Wednesday's proposals, which were presented as a motion in parliament, are still controversial, including calls for an end to sanctions on Russia, cessation of EU-Turkey accession talks until the rule of law is restored, and suspending Turkey from NATO.

2) A euro referendum

The 5Stars, who are in the same European Parliament group as UKIP, were at first seen as strongly Euroskeptic. But following the U.K.'s Brexit vote, they have softened their position. They now say they would only call a referendum on the single currency and have walked back on earlier anti-European rhetoric.

“We have never put in discussion Italian membership in the EU but we have always brought forward the hypothesis of a referendum because citizens must decide on their monetary policy,” Luigi Di Maio, one of the movement's leaders, and the most likely candidate for the premiership, said in an interview at the end of June.

There's a small technical hitch, though: The Italian constitution doesn't allow votes on international treaties.

3) Internet democracy

The 5Stars are an internet-based movement with members voting on the web on many key decisions using the movement's own software — named Rousseau after the Swiss-born thinker and father of direct democracy. It is designed for members to vote directly on decisions and candidates.

With Grillo taking a step back to focus on his comedy career, there is a small group of five leaders driving the movement but not a single leader yet, though the 30-year-old Di Maio appears the most likely candidate.

4) Guaranteed basic income

One of the key elements of the party platform is a proposal to guarantee basic income for those living below the poverty line. According to Istat, the Italian statics bureau, that accounts for almost 11 percent of Italian families and such a basic income would cost about €15 billion, or almost one percent of Italian GDP.

In a country with the second highest public debt ratio in the eurozone after Greece, that could be a problem. The 5stars, however, say they know where to find the money, even if critics dispute such claims.

5) More conspiracy theories

Critics laugh at some of the wilder plots entertained by certain 5Star members. One lawmaker believes that the official version of the 9/11 attacks “is clearly false;” another has supported the so-called chemtrail conspiracy theory — that long-lasting trails left in the sky by high-flying aircrafts are made of dangerous chemical agents deliberately sprayed for sinister purposes.

But the peak of conspiracy theories may have been reached at the beginning of the year when a 5Star lawmaker, Paola Taverna, denounced what she described as "a plot" to make her party win the elections in Rome. Why? Because the capital is so full of problems, victory would be a poisoned chalice.