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AS TIMING goes, this was one scandal that could hardly have come at a worse moment. Just as the supporters of Italy’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Party (PD), were preparing to elect a new leader in nationwide primaries, the party faithful were last weekend rocked by a sex and drugs scandal involving Piero Marrazzo, the centre-left president of Lazio, the region around the capital Rome.

In theory, the PD supporters were called on yesterday to pick a new leader in an election prompted by the resignation last February of Walter Veltroni, the man who lost to prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in the 2008 general election. Mr Veltroni’s resignation had been prompted by his fifth-straight electoral defeat by Mr Berlusconi, this time in Sardinian regional elections.