Grillo makes five star progress in campaign Barely a day goes by in Italy's cliffhanger election campaign without the sudden surfacing of some fresh corporate or political scandal, or even the drama of the first papal resignation in nearly 600 years. While exhausted television broadcasters struggle to keep up with the news, and mainstream politicians fight back accusations of incompetence or worse, one man is clearly riding the wave. Beppe Grillo, a stand-up comedian and Italy's most popular blogger, is relishing his role as leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, the only politician who dares risk showing his face in the piazza as a large chunk of a very discontented electorate looks forward to voting against what he calls la casta - the caste. Final opinion polls published last week ahead of the February 24-25 election showed his movement with the most momentum, in third position taking some 13 to 16 per cent of the vote, well ahead of Prime Minister Mario Monti's Civic Choice and only a few points adrift of Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right People of Liberty. Pollsters see the latest scandals - from arrests at the top of the state-controlled Finmeccanica defence group to corruption probes into the Eni oil and gas company and Italy's third-largest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena - as driving a large number of still undecided voters into Mr Grillo's arms. "The country is like a landslide . . . let's send them all home," Mr Grillo wrote on his blog, ranting against Italy's longstanding nexus between politics and corporate power. That Mr Grillo's surge is worrying his opponents is evident as they switch their focus of attack. Mr Monti on Tuesday said Mr Grillo should take his rallies to the squares of Greece where he would find them "full of neo-fascists," while Mr Berlusconi claimed that 80 per cent of Five Star Movement candidates were from the "extreme left." A senior official from the centre-left Democratic party, which had a lead last week of several points over the centre-right, conceded that they were concerned about a "dangerous" boost to Mr Grillo from the Finmeccanica scandal that erupted with the arrest of its chief executive on Tuesday. Even Pope Benedict's dramatic announcement that he will step down is a boon to Mr Grillo. With news broadcasts focusing on the papal turnover, mainstream politicians are pushed down the agenda. Mr Grillo founded his movement through social media three years ago and has refused to appear on television. The first survey of its kind into Italians backing the Five Star Movement, to be published by Demos on Thursday, explains its popularity, revealing what the UK think-tank calls "astonishing levels of distrust in politics, business and the media among its online supporters." A detailed survey of nearly 2,000 Facebook fans of Mr Grillo, who has more than 1m "likes," shows that only 8 per cent trust the government, 3 per cent trust political parties, and 2 per cent trust banks and financial institutions - lower on every measure than the Italian general public. The same is true of the mainstream Italian media, which Grillo regularly rails against, with only 11 per cent trusting the press and 4 per cent television, which is dominated by the state broadcaster and Mr Berlusconi's Mediaset network. Analysts Fabio Bordignon and Luigi Ceccarini, cited by Demos, found that 32 per cent of Five Star Movement voters define themselves as centre-left or left, and 28 per cent as centre-right or right. Demos says the rise in the movement's popularity is unparalleled for a new movement in western Europe. "The combination of his charismatic anti-establishment rhetoric and the power of new social media to reach out to audiences beyond the confines of more traditional media has proved a lethal cocktail, and leaves him a force to be reckoned with," concludes Jamie Bartlett, an author of the report. What happens in a future fragmented parliament when Five Star members take their seats - without Mr Grillo who is not running for office - remains to be seen. The Democrats, still hopeful of securing a majority in the lower house though possibly not in the senate, fear they will be up against a disruptive opposition dominated by populists. Antimo Farro, professor at Rome's La Sapienza University, is not so sure. By entering into institutional power, the coherence of a grassroots and ultra-democratic movement driven paradoxically by the charisma of one man will be at risk - a danger that Mr Grillo himself recognises, Prof Farro says.