ITALY:CENTRE-RIGHT candidate Gianni Alemanno, a former member of the fascist MSI party that traced its roots to Benito Mussolini, yesterday pulled off an emphatic and highly symbolic victory in this weekend's Rome mayoral election.
Just two weeks after media magnate Silvio Berlusconi led the centre-right to an emphatic general election victory, his former agriculture minister compounded that success by defeating centre-left candidate Francesco Rutelli, deputy prime minister in the outgoing centre-left government led by Romano Prodi.
With more than 90 per cent of the votes counted, Mr Alemanno had polled 53.6 per cent or at least 100,000 votes more than Mr Rutelli on 46.3 per cent.
Clearly, the Berlusconi general election victory played a major role in this weekend's run-off vote with Mr Alemanno riding the tide of centre-right success to stage a remarkable comeback since he had lost the first round by 40.7 per cent to 45.8 per cent.
Significantly, turnout was sharply down on the first round with 63 per cent voting this weekend as compared to 73.5 per cent two weeks ago. Obviously, many disillusioned centre-left voters simply stayed away.
Former Rome mayor Walter Veltroni, who left city hall just two months ago to lead the Partito Democratico (PD) against Mr Berlusconi in the general election, suggested last night that Mr Alemanno's victory was at least in part due to the extent to which the issue of violent immigrant crime had dominated the election.
The rape 10 days ago of a 31-year-old Lesotho woman and the murder last November of Giovanna Reggiani, wife of a senior naval officer - two crimes of which Romanian immigrants have been accused - featured prominently in the election campaign.
Mr Alemanno last night said that his first act as mayor-in-waiting would be to visit widower, Capt Giovanni Gumiero, husband of the late Ms Reggiani.
"After 15 years, Romans were ready to turn a new leaf," Mr Alemanno told reporters yesterday.
"The country and the city are ready for a new season of leaders and a new way of doing politics." During the campaign, Mr Alemanno found himself at the centre of controversy because of a Celtic cross that he wears as a pendant around his neck.
When the centre-left accused him of wearing an object that in Italy denotes extreme right-wing positions, he defended himself by saying that for him it was "a religious symbol" and that it had belonged to a friend, Paolo Di Nella, a young neo-fascist activist killed while putting up posters in Rome in 1983. - (Additional reporting Bloomberg)