original nature of a "centrist party of liberal-democratic inspiration". Giuseppe Astore, a senator, offered similar views: "De Magistris is too far on the left for me ... . I want a reformist not an extremist party". In the summer of 2010 two MEPs, Arlacchi and Vincenzo Iovine, left IdV citing the lack of democracy in the party. Arlacchi, a former senator of the PDS, joined the PD, while Iovine, a former Christian Democrat, the ApI. In December two deputies, Antonio Razzi and Domenico Scilipoti, left the party in order to support Berlusconi's government. In early 2011 IdV proposed three referendums. Thanks to its activists, the party was able to collect two million signatures among the Italian population in support of these referendums, which were concerned with the abrogation of the so-called legittimo impedimento (an Italian law which permits the Prime Minister to postpone potential trials if prosecuted by the judiciary), the abrogation of a law allowing the construction of nuclear power plants in Italy and the abrogation of a law allowing the privatisation of water management. The referendums took place in June 2011 and the "yes" prevailed in all three cases. On 30 May 2011 de Magistris was elected mayor of Naples by a landslide. The IdV candidate, who had received just 27.5% of the vote in the first round (enough to beat the Democratic candidate off the second round), won a thumping 65.4% of the vote against the centre-right candidate in the run-off. This was a huge success for IdV and its main ally, the Federation of the Left, which together also gained the majority in the municipal council. On 21 May 2012 the party had another major electoral breakthrough when Leoluca Orlando was elected mayor of Palermo with 72.4% of the vote in a run-off. Both mayors would distance from IdV in a few years. In October 2012 IdV came under pressure after some news inquiries reported obscurities in party finances, while suffering heavy losses in opinion polls due to the success of a new protest party led by comedian Beppe Grillo, the Five Star Movement (M5S). In an interview to Il Fatto Quotidiano, Di Pietro declared IdV "dead" and, foreseeing its exclusion from Parliament after the next election, stated that the party would fight from the outside and would endorse the M5S. Grillo proposed Di Pietro as President of the Republic, but ruled out any alliance between