In February 2021, Prime Minister
Giuseppe Conte was forced to resign, after losing the absolute majority in the
Senate of the Republic. On 28 February 2021, after a few days from the end of his premiership, Conte joined the
Five Star Movement (M5S), the party which proposed his candidacy as Prime Minister in June 2018. After a few days, the founder and so-called Guarantor of the M5S,
Beppe Grillo, gave Conte the task of writing a new party's statute and announced that Conte would become the new political leader. In the following months, however, tensions grown up between the two politicians. In June, Grillo accused Conte of aiming at creating a one-man party and of being "without a political vision". The former Prime Minister threatened to found his own political movement, stating that Grillo "can not stop this useful political project". In July 2021, Conte and Grillo found a compromise on the new statute and leadership elections were called on 6 August. ==Candidates==