Elected mayor as a member of the Five Star Movement (Movimento Cinque Stelle, M5S), which he had first joined in 2009, he successfully ran for re-election in 2017 through a civic list, after dissent within the M5S.

In 2022, he briefly joined the National Civic List (Lista Civica Nazionale, LCN) within Italy Is There (L'Italia c'è, LIC), before he left for More Europe (Più Europa, +Eu), where he was elected president in February 2023.

In April 2024, he left +Eu due to dissent ahead of the 2024 European Parliament election, and joined the Action (Azione, Az) party led by Carlo Calenda.

At the time of his election as mayor, he worked as a project manager at Credito Emiliano in Reggio Emilia in the information and communications technology sector.

[8][9] On 16 September 2016, following the dismissal of the charges against him, he asked to be reinstated within the M5S;[10] as he received no response, and with the new regulations that were modified during the suspension, Pizzarotti announced that he was leaving the M5S on 3 October 2016.

[13] After his departure from the M5S, Pizzarotti continued his mandate as an independent politician with the support of the city council group Parma Effect, which was composed of former M5S councillors who stood by their mayor.

[22] The Sardinia in Common list, which was made up of Italia in the Municipality of Sardegna, Possible, Laura Boldrini's Futura, and Radicales Sardos, supported of the centre-left coalition candidate Massimo Zedda; it garnered 2.5% of the votes and elected a councilor.

[36] In November 2022, Pizzarotti announced his membership in +Eu and at the same time his presidential candidacy for the next congress to determine Benedetto Della Vedova's successor at the helm of the party.

[42] Following Magi's and +Eu's decision to join the United States of Europe list with Renzi's IV ahead of the 2024 European Parliament election in Italy, which Pizzarotti did not share, he left the party on 10 April 2024.

He cited as reasons for his exit the alliance with Salvatore Cuffaro and his candidates, such as Cuffaro's brother-in-law Marco Zambuto, as well as Clemente Mastella's wife Sandra Lonardo, and Armando Cesaro, the son of Forza Italia (FI) politician Luigi Cesaro and former FI group leader in the Regional Council of Campania who was appointed head of IV's local authorities.