12 November 2018

Politico: The sack of Rome’s mayor

Since taking office in 2016, the mayor of Rome has been unable to clean up the city’s filthy streets and make its badly maintained transport system work. Last month a tube station escalator collapsed, injuring 24, including one man who lost a foot. Almost no one is pleased with her work. [...]

According to the 5Stars’ code of ethics, a conviction of any kind would result in her resignation. Yet while her boss, 5Star leader and Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio, and the movement’s founder, Beppe Grillo, don’t like Raggi, they also don’t want her to resign because they fear losing control of Rome to their coalition partner and chief political rival, the League. [...]

Before the 5Stars took over a major city for the first time, Rome was briefly governed by the center-left Democratic Party’s Ignazio Marino, and before that by the right-wing Gianni Alemanno. The latter is currently facing trial for corruption and Marino — who denounced the city’s systemic corruption to prosecutors, triggering the “Mafia Capitale” scandal — resigned over a restaurant expenses scandal.

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