Five Star Movement politicians were forced to sit down for a 40-minute high-school style exam on Tuesday.
ADVERTISEMENTIt was like going back to school for politicians of Italy's ruling Five Star Movement (M5S) party, under fire after the EU elections.
They had to sit down for a high-school style exam setting out their achievements before evaluating the performance of other politicians.
Support for the anti-establishment M5S has been declining as coalition partners League enjoyed success in the European Parliament elections.
Matteo Salvini's League party won the elections on May 26 with 34% of the vote, whereas the M5S fell from just under 33% in the national parliamentary elections last year to 17% in the EU elections.
Under mounting pressure to address declining support, party leader Luigi Di Maio launched an internal “graticola” operation — an interrogation of sorts — of Five Star Movement undersecretaries and vice-ministers of the cabinet.
The politicians underwent a 40-minute exam on Tuesday in front of their M5S Parliamentary Commission colleagues.
In the first 20 minutes, undersecretaries and vice-ministers were recorded talking about what they had done during their mandate and in the second part, the politicians defended themselves from their critics.
It is unclear how the video recordings will be used in the future.
In anonymous evaluations, members of parliament rated politicians' basic skills either high, medium, or low.
They rated skills such as attendance, listening ability, and organisational skills.
Many politicians, the HuffPost reported, refused to fill in the questionnaire calling the test “ridiculous”.
In an internal e-mail, Di Maio said the party needed a "moment of reflection and discussion" and said the evaluations would be assessed by himself and a group of party directors.
The undersecretaries could end up losing their jobs after the results are calculated.
Euronews reached out to one of the Five Star Movement undersecretaries but he refused to comment on the examination.