Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
I'm more concerned by authoritarians who are not openly extremist (gun-toting, tattooed, bald head and stuff), but manager to get government powers.

I'm thinking about Hungary and Romania here.
These countries are about to become political untouchables in the EU because of their deviation from democracy and hard turn towards right wing authoritarian governments with controlled media etc.
This is a big concern indeed. In Italy we have a terrible record of governance and it is absolutely correct to talk about a political caste, especially in some regions. We also had laws made for a single person and attempts to modify the constitution to get the president more power - designed by the same person - but so far there has been no stark turn towards an authoritarian state.

Now Grillo does behave like a little dictator in the M5S and is the face and the voice of the movement but I do think that a lot of it has to do with the understandable fear that other politcal forces - especially on the right - might once again to buy votes and undermine the M5S. While it may sound wild the richest man in politics faces two unrelated trial for doing just that...

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Democracy is an ongoing process and no final, steady state. Sadly looking east towards Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Belorussia and Russia we have plenty of such examples...