When Paola Carinelli was at university, she worked for a while in Britain in IT. Upon graduating she took a job at the airport in her native Milan, and after that was hired to work for an international courier service. Now 33, and with no professional experience in politics, she is heading to Rome to take up a seat in the new-look Italian parliament.

"It's a challenge," she admitted on Tuesday, "but it's a challenge we want." The plural was necessary because Carinelli's situation, though somewhat unusual when viewed through the prism of mainstream politics, is suddenly, in Italy, far from unique.

No fewer than 163 of her colleagues from the Five Star Movement (M5S), the rambunctious anti-establishment force that broke through in spectacular style at the polls, will be joining her in parliament. Most are novices. All are hopeful.

"I think this could be the beginning of a new politics. I think people have realised this change is possible," said Carinelli – elected, like 108 others, to represent the M5S in the lower house – or Chamber of Deputies, where it is against all expectations the largest single party.

Fifty-four of the movement's candidates were elected to sit in the Senate.

"This is a great result for us," said Carinelli. "It's a big sign that people are very tired of this old politics. They told us yesterday they want change." Should people be worried about the lack of experience? "I say that if experience leads to bribery and to stealing money, I'm happy not to be experienced."

On Monday night, as supporters of centre-left head Pier Luigi Bersani and outgoing technocrat Mario Monti buried their heads in their hands, the M5S's legions of supporters, members and candidates were bringing out the Prosecco. The result – which revealed it had performed better at the polls than even the most optimistic of them had dared hope – had given the party the balance of power in an otherwise deadlocked parliament.

The man on whom the spotlight has shone is, unsurprisingly, Beppe Grillo, the mane-haired former comedian and blogger who created the movement in 2009. But what is now on the minds of many are the dozens of people who have lined up behind him and have, out of nowhere, got to prove their political mettle at a time of crisis.

"These are ordinary people. They are all completely new. None of them have ever stepped into any kind of chamber in their life," said Duncan McDonnell of the European University Institute in Florence.

"Any single new party, if it has a sudden spurt of growth, always has the problem of how to handle it, because it doesn't have the structures and the rules and the personnel to handle this kind of vote. But now, of course, on top of this you've also got the fact that we've got a log-jam [in the parliament]. And the M5S has become very important."

When it was choosing its parliamentary candidates to field in this election, the M5S – in the best traditions of its web-savvy roots – held online primaries. Grillo, speaking of the people for whom he had cast his vote, said: "A mother of three, a 23-year-old college graduate and an engineer. Those are the people I want to see in parliament."

That, by and large, is what he has got. Many of the movement's elected representatives are civic-minded, young – highly unusual in Italy's ageing mainstream political world – and female. Under the M5S's rules, none will be able to serve more than two terms.

Laura Castelli, a 26-year-old from the north-western city of Turin elected to the chamber, said on Tuesday the situation facing the M5S's parliamentarians was "wonderful, and very exciting".

"It's clear we must bear our responsibilities but the beautiful thing about the movement is that none of us are alone," she said. Castelli, an accountancy graduate, who previously worked for the M5S group in the regional council of Piedmont, rejected any suggestion that the M5S could be criticised for pitching Italy into a state of feared ungovernability.

"It's not our fault," she said, citing Silvio Berlusconi's offer of a tax refund as an example of how others had attempted to "buy votes". She cannot wait to get stuck in – starting with the electoral law that has been blamed for much of the current impasse. "It is highly important that we decide soon what to do, and to do it quickly," said Castelli. She then wants to see a law that would clamp down on conflicts of interest.

Quite how the M5S parliamentarians – or 'Grillini' as they have been dubbed – will vote remains unclear, particularly as the nature of any future government itself remains a mystery.

But even without that added layer of uncertainty, say observers, there is a lot that is unknown about how coherent the M5S presence is. Grillo himself has insisted that the movement is "above" the mainstream political spectrum; the policies he espouses tilt both to the left and the right.

McDonnell said the process by which the representatives had emerged meant that even the M5S's founder and his web guru, Roberto Casaleggio, might have some surprises waiting for him from within the ranks.

"To what extent have even they been able to scrutinise these people?" he said. "Probably not much because they simply lack the structures. We're talking about a party whose headquarters is an internet site. These aren't people who've come through party branches and who they've got to know and so on. We're likely to see chaos."

The leadership of Grillo, who was criticised last year when he expelled two local councillors in Bologna, is not without controversy. At his final rally in Rome on Friday, Grillo was again accused of heavy-handed tactics when the M5S initially refused backstage access to Italian – but not foreign – journalists.

But for Carinelli any suggestion he is an autocrat is "ridiculous". "Beppe Grillo is a big person, with great charisma and he is very smart," she said. "I like the fact that he doesn't control us; he gives us the freedom to do or say what we want. He will not be a member of parliament; we will be in the parliament and we will vote and decide what we want."