国际英语资讯:News Analysis: Is Italys Renzi able to fight populist Five Star Movement?_时事

国际英语资讯:News Analysis: Is Italys Renzi able to fight populist Five Star Movement?

ROME, May 2 -- Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is back in the saddle after being reappointed as leader of the ruling Democratic Party (PD) in the latest PD primary vote.

The staunchly pro-European Union (EU) politician beat two other contenders by a wide margin, garnering over 70 percent of the vote as almost 2 million Democratic Party (PD) rank-and-file members and sympathizers cast their ballots -- down from the 3 million who elected Renzi in 2013 party primaries.

Sunday's victory positions Renzi as the center-left candidate for prime minister in the next general election, which will likely occur in early 2018 and will see him pitted against Italy's current number one party: the populist, Eurosceptic, Five Star Movement led by comedian Beppe Grillo.

In his victory speech at PD headquarters, Renzi did not hesitate to throw jabs at his political opponent. "The only alternative to populism is the people," Renzi told supporters.

"When 2 million turn out to vote...these are persons not algorithms, flesh and blood not tiny numbers, votes and faces not emoticons on social media," he said in reference to the Five Star Movement's online voting system and internet-based methods.

Renzi, who entered politics at the age of 21 and who turned 42 this year, quit as prime minister and PD secretary in December 2016 after almost three years in the post when close to 60 percent of Italian voters turned down his government's flagship constitutional reform.