'Anti-politics' movement lands Parma in election runoffs Centre-left perform well elsewhere, League meltdown continues

(ANSA) - Rome, May 21 - The so-called anti-politics Five Star movement of comedian Beppe Grillo pulled off a major coup on Monday when its candidate was elected mayor of Parma in a runoff with the centre-left's representative.Federico Pizzarotti prevailed with just over 60% of the votes for the grassroots movement, which also won a number of runoffs in smaller towns after making big gains in the first round of local elections earlier this month."Parma goes to Five Stars," said Grillo, who is opposed to the current party system and has called for Italy to leave the euro, via Twitter.The outcome is likely to be seen as a major protest vote against Premier Mario Monti's austerity measures and a sign of frustration with Italy's political class as a whole. Former Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party, which support Monti's emergency administration of technocrats, suffered a series of heavy defeats in the first round two weeks ago.The Third Pole, a coalition of centrist parties that form the other main group supporting Monti, also performed badly.The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) was the only one of the three big groups backing Monti to see its support hold up.Aside from Parma, the PD did well, with candidates it backed winning the runoffs in Genoa and L'Aquila and many smaller towns."Of the 177 towns voting with under 15,000 inhabitants, we won in 92," said PD leader Pier Luigi Bersani. "We won, no ifs and no buts".However the PD-backed man lost the contest in Palermo to former mayor Leoluca Orlando, who was representing a smaller centre-left party, Italy of Values (IDV).The Northern League, which until November was allied with the PdL in government, was clobbered by voters again in the wake of a corruption scandal that caused Umberto Bossi to resign as leader last month.The populist party lost all seven of the towns where it was involved in run-offs.As in the first round of voting, which affected almost 1,000 Italian cities and towns, turnout was down in the runoffs.photo: Federico Pizzarotti with his wife.