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Nobody wants to be mayor of Rome

2021-05-27T09:45:42.027Z


The major parties present second-row candidates due to the difficulty of finding prominent figures who will assume the wear and tear of the capital of Italy


The 5 Star Movement (M5S), a political experiment that emerged from the interests of a communication company and the anti-caste impulses of a comedian (Beppe Grillo), began its true electoral rise five years ago.

In June 2016 he caressed the mayor of the city of Rome in the second round.

It was great news.

But one of its top leaders, Paola Taverna, summed up in a lapidary phrase what the capital of Italy represents for the parties: “There is a plot for us to win the elections.

This way they will make us look bad ”.

Rome is a political crusher. Walter Veltroni was the last great mayor (from 2001 to 2008) to have a city that still preserved its international splendor beyond its eternal tourist interest. Since then, all his successors, such as the post-fascist Gianni Alemanno or the social democrat Ignazio Marino, have shared scandals, legal proceedings and the dubious management of a city that, according to a 2020 European Commission study, is the second worst community capital. quality of life, only behind Athens. Virginia Raggi, finally elected in 2016 by the M5S and current mayor, has been one more link in that decline, according to the assessment of the citizens themselves. But the lack of interest in the rest of the games, with no candidate yet or with second-course bets, place her as the favorite (26,9% in the last survey of

La Repubblica

) before the October elections.

Raggi, who set out to overcome the city's structural problems, has not met his goals. Rome continues to have serious deficiencies in transport, urban cleaning or the management of public companies. Her party was not even clear that she could be the candidate again, but there were not too many alternatives and she insisted on repeating in a scenario with little competition. Rome, a city almost as big as London, but with just three million inhabitants (which implies insufficient collection of municipal taxes to manage a space of such dimensions) scares anyone. Managing infrastructures, disproportionate public companies (8,000 workers in waste) or 440 square kilometers of green areas is not easy. And the great parties, with hardly any new leading cadres,they have not found volunteers to apply for the position that will be decided at the polls in October.

Virginia Raggi, mayor of Rome, of the 5 Star Movement Alessandro Di Meo / AP

Raggi has been the hit sack of every game for five years. It was presented by the M5S as a symbol of political regeneration. Elected with almost 70% of the votes, she has been unable to invigorate the indomitable Roman public services at this time —AMA, the company that manages the funeral home, had recently accumulated a 35-day delay to incinerate the deceased— and was charged with perjury and abuse of power (and acquitted). In Rome it is easy to see burning buses, huge cracks that open in the street and gobble up cars like cookies (it happened yesterday in the Torpignattara neighborhood) or wild boar snooping in the garbage. Everything, often also unfairly, always ends up being the fault of the mayor, meme meat on the networks. But when push comes to shove,as the elections approached, the parties looked the other way.

Francesco Rutelli, former mayor of Rome, whose administration (1993-2001) has left a great memory among the Romans, believes that this indecision is due in part to the fact that "the parties have lost the link with the more organized popular classes." “There is also a drop in confidence in competition, typical of politics. And a problem of reducing everything to the idea of ​​a single man in command. Let everything be related to personality. In the past there were ready leaders, but they were also very capable of team building. They were accompanied by large and intelligent organizations ”. Its formation — the Democratic Party (PD) until it left it in 2009 — is a clear example of that change.

Enrico Letta, federal secretary of the PD, asked Nicola Zingaretti (current governor of Lazio) to take care of returning Campidoglio to the left. The president of the region has a good poster as a manager, knows the territory very well and enjoys a credible and popular profile. But he also preferred not to do so and had to opt for former Minister of Economy Roberto Gualtieri. A politician who knows the city, but with a debatable charisma and chosen as a second option (he will still have to overcome some internal primaries). "He will know how to do it very well," say PD sources, who trust that in the second round of the elections - key to reaching the mayor's office - he will prevail dragging the votes of the only candidate who has shown real interest in that position in recent years. months.

Carlo Calenda, former Minister of Industry and Economic Development of the Governments of Enrico Letta and Matteo Renzi, is the most active candidate right now.

With a liberal profile, little ideological and with experience in business management, he has founded his own party (Azione) and says he is not afraid.

“The idea that Rome is ungovernable has spread.

In the parties this idea has permeated.

I come from the company and have been a minister.

I like to manage, I see politics more like this than as an ideological confrontation.

And Rome has a problem to become a decent city, "he says.

Beyond Raggi, he is the only fully defined candidate.

Carlo Calenda speaks at a rally against justice reform in 2020.Mondadori Portfolio / Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Im

Many are calling for a strong hand in Rome, a city with a staff of 23,000 officials. And the mayoralty could have gone to the far-right Giorgia Meloni, as it seemed a year and a half ago when she had not yet begun her climb to surpass Matteo Salvini as leader of the right-wing coalition at the national level. Today, the leader of the Brothers of Italy, Roman to the bone (from the Garbatella neighborhood), has no interest in squandering her promotion by running for municipal elections. "Giorgia has another project in mind right now that does not go through Rome at all," say sources from his party. The right then proposed Guido Bertolaso, who rejected the offer, evidencing the disenchantment generated by Rome.

The right-wing coalition seeks an agreement in extremis, a candidate from civil society that brings together the different sensitivities of the three parties that comprise it (Forza Italia, Hermanos de Italia and Liga). The last name to ring is Enrico Michetti, a lawyer with knowledge of the Roman Administration, but anonymous to most of his potential voters. Something that, perhaps, could become an advantage in Rome.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-05-27

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