SCAMPIA on a wet Monday is the last place most Italians would care to be. Once a stronghold of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, and the scene of two homicidal faide (feuds), it is a byword for peril and squalor. Unfairly so: the drug-dealing at the root of Scampia's problems has since moved to other parts of Naples. But it remains a tough neighbourhood, and Luigi Di Maio (pictured), the prime ministerial candidate of the maverick Five Star Movement (M5S), cut an incongruous figure as he arrived this week in an immaculate dark suit and blue patterned tie.
Italy's general election is due on March 4th, and Mr Di Maio was in Scampia for a campaign stop at a gym that keeps local boys off the streets. It was just the place to spotlight the M5S's claim to represent honesty and respect for the law, qualities too often lacking in Italy's mainstream politics. By boasting of its clean hands, however, the movement has made itself unusually vulnerable to scandals, the latest of...
The Economist: Europe
