More than 30% of Italians would like to see crusading comic Beppe Grillo become premier, according to a poll out on Wednesday.
Grillo has been in the spotlight after hundreds of thousands of Italians turned out to sign his petition aimed at purging parliament of MPs who have been in trouble with the law.
The success of the Saturday campaign shook Italy's political establishment.
Two Thursday polls showed that ordinary Italians were far more pro-Grillo than the politicians, many of whom have accused the Genoese comedian of "anti-politics" and "shallow demagoguery".
The survey by Rupert Murdoch's satellite TV Sky Italia, which asked viewers what they thought of Grillo, found that 34% wanted him to head the government.
Another 12% said he would make an ideal opposition chief.
The majority, 54%, said they wanted him to continue his firebrand style of denunciation-by-humour.
In another poll by research institute Ipr for Italian daily La Repubblica, 23% of respondents said they wanted Grillo to enter politics and found a party.
The idea of a Grillo party was particularly popular with undecided voters (31%) and centre-right voters (25%) while only 8% of centre-left voters said they would back him.
In the Ipr survey, 64% said they would prefer Grillo to continue using his cult status to put pressure on parliament and lawmakers from the outside.
V-DAY SUCCESS TAKES PARLIAMENT BY SURPRISE.
True to style, Grillo dubbed his Saturday initiative "V-Day" with V standing for vaffanculo (f*** off) and directed at the many MPs currently sitting in parliament who have been convicted or are on trial.
Grillo relied entirely on his immensely popular blog - the most-read one in Italy and among the top 20 worldwide - to drum up support for the popular legislative initiative.
Legions of supporters set up impromptu stands in more than 220 Italian cities as well as dozens of foreign cities to collect the 50,000 signatures needed to lodge a petition for Grillo's Clean Parliament Law.
The bill consists of three articles, the first banning any parliamentary candidates who are on trial or have been convicted, the second preventing MPs from serving for more than two legislatures, and the third introducing direct election of MPs rather than leaving the choice up to parties.
According to the recent book Honourable Men Wanted, co-authored by a group of political journalists, almost 10% of Italian lawmakers are either on trial, awaiting an appeal or have a conviction, including former premier and opposition chief Silvio Berlusconi.
Close Berlusconi aide Cesare Previti, who has twice been convicted of corruption, resigned as MP two months ago just as the House was about to strip him of his seat in compliance with a court ruling banning him from public office.
Grillo's campaign struck a chord with many Italians and came at a time of growing public dissatisfaction with politicians, slammed by many critics as pampered, overpaid and out of touch with reality.
The political class has been dubbed The Caste following the success of another book of the same name which exposed the inflated cost of politics and MPs's perks and privileges.
Grillo's petition was signed by more than 300,000 people, astonishing MPs.
The bill will now be deposited in parliament, where the likelihood of it being passed remains slim.
Most MPs remain hostile to the whole initiative.
A large number of politicians expressed perplexity at the two-term limit, which would mean MPs remaining ten years at most in politics.
Others complained that the proposal made no distinction between MPs convicted of minor crimes, such as unauthorised building work, and those convicted of serious ones such as Mafia-type offences.
But Interior Minister Giuliano Amato commented on Thursday: "Sometimes, kicks in the butt are useful for getting things done. It's sad but true".
House Speaker Fausto Bertinotti, a hard leftist, said that "in cases of mass denunciation, the person who is being denounced should try and understand why... The gap between the people and politics exists, and it's a very big one".
Grillo, meanwhile, has hailed V-Day as the "start of a new Renaissance" and the "Woodstock of law and order".
In an article posted on his blog, the 59-year-old comedian - who has been informally banned from TV - said "there's no stopping us now".
He also denied that he intended forming his own party, saying: "I don't want to create a party, I want to destroy parties because they are the cancer of democracy. We have to take politics back into our own hands".
Grillo has long been a thorn in the side of the powers that be. He has been off the airwaves since 1987 when he made a stab at Bettino Craxi - six years before the late Socialist leader's downfall amid escalating corruption scandals.
In 2005, America's Time magazine named Grillo one of its European heroes of the year, praising him for his hard-hitting brand of humour.
