Raggi, Virginia (1978- )

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    Rome Mayor Loses Re-election Bid, a Defeat for Five Star Movement

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    In five years in office, Virginia Raggi failed to stem the dysfunction of Italy’s capital, where voters will choose between two of her rivals in a runoff.ROME — Voters on Monday resoundingly rejected the re-election bid of Rome’s mayor, Virginia Raggi of the Five Star Movement, who swept into power five years ago promising change but was unable to turn around the degradation of services and quality of life that has become a hallmark of the capital.Instead, Ms. Raggi, the first woman to govern Rome and its youngest mayor, became associated with the city’s decline, earning her — and her party — a national reputation for incompetence.Speaking to supporters at a hotel in downtown Rome late on Monday, Ms. Raggi appeared to concede defeat.“As they say in Rome, I took on the most difficult part of the job and I did it with conviction,” she said. “Now those who come after me have no more excuses for not doing a good job, and we’re going to be watching them closely.”She lagged well behind the two leading candidates: Enrico Michetti, a lawyer supported by several parties on the right, and Roberto Gualtieri, a former finance minister and the candidate of a center-left coalition led by the Democratic Party.With most election districts counted, Mr. Michetti had more than 30 percent of the vote, Mr. Gualtieri 27 percent and Ms. Raggi just under 20 percent. Carlo Calenda, a rival to Mr. Gualtieri to be the center-left standard-bearer, had about 19 percent.With no candidate winning more than half the vote, Mr. Michetti and Mr. Gualtieri will compete in a runoff election on Oct. 18. Ms. Raggi told her supporters that she would not openly back either man.“The vote is free,” she said. “Votes are not packages to move around, nor are citizens cattle to be taken to pasture.”Ms. Raggi was once a bright spot in the firmament of Five Star, an upstart anti-establishment party that had charmed Italians who were jaded with the country’s political class.But the city’s problems piled up on her watch, as did uncollected garbage, attracting swarms of sea gulls, crows, and even hungry boars. A pothole epidemic saw no fix in sight. Public buses caught on fire, and some cyclists complained that the bike lanes the mayor had installed were unsafe and poorly maintained.Then on Saturday night, just hours before polls opened, a 19th century bridge in a trendy Rome neighborhood caught fire. Investigators and experts are still looking into the causes of the fire, but the metaphor of Rome burning was not lost on Ms. Raggi’s critics.Municipal elections were held on Monday in over 1,000 Italian cities and towns, but it is not yet clear what they mean for national politics. The next parliamentary elections could be more than a year and a half away.Prime Minister Mario Draghi, an independent and the former president of the European Central Bank, has broad support in Parliament, but low voter turnout may be a reflection of general disaffection among the electorate. Only 48.8 percent of Rome’s electors went to the polls, about ten percent less than five years ago, and the national average fell just short of 55 percent, the lowest ever.Ms. Raggi’s fate was, in part, a reflection of her party’s. Five Star has hemorrhaged support since triumphant national elections in 2018, when it won the largest share of the vote and formed part of the governing coalition.“It’s one thing to promise changes when you’re in the opposition, another to transform them into effective policies when you’re in the government,” said Roberto Biorcio, a professor of political sociology at the University of Milan at Bicocca. “In this sense, she followed this downward trajectory.”In Rome, disillusionment with Ms. Raggi grew as she failed to build a strong team, frequently replacing top cabinet members, which paralyzed administrative decisions.“It was the continuation of a trend of the deterioration of the city,” said Giovanni Orsina, the dean of Luiss University’s School of Government.“Rome’s problems are all still there,” after five years of Five Star government, he said, citing the garbage crisis and the city’s notoriously ineffective transport system. “And now the bridge caught fire ahead of the elections.”Support for the Five Star Movement also eroded in other cities. In Turin, another big win for the party in 2016, its mayoral candidate finished a distant third.But center-leftists where the Five Star and Democratic Party were allied won their races outright in closely watched races in Bologna and Naples, giving a boost to former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who was elected president of the Five Star in August. He has been pushing for these alliances, putting him on a collision course with more orthodox Five Star members who remain grounded in their anti-establishment roots.The outcome in various cities “suggests that where the Five Star and Democrats joined forces they can obtain some good results,” Mr. Biorcio said.Ms. Raggi may have lost her job, but she still has clout within Five Star, after being elected last month to the party’s governing body. And at 43, she is still young.“After being mayor of Rome for five years, it will be hard for her to go back to being a lawyer,” said Professor Orsina. “Now she’ll try to see if she’s able to parlay a different political future in the Five Star Movement.” More

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      Romans Choose From a Crowded Field to Run a Chaotic City

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      Rome has defied efforts to make basic services work, and the incumbent mayor lags in the polls, with no shortage of rivals hoping to take her place.ROME — In the five years since Virginia Raggi became mayor, Rome has had some problems. Garbage has piled up on sidewalks, attracting swarms of sea gulls and crows. A pothole epidemic has riddled city streets. Public buses, already unreliable, have started combusting. And the city’s Christmas tree has looked so sad that Romans nicknamed it “Mangy.”Now, in the days leading up to Rome’s mayoral election on Sunday, the city’s newspapers, frustrated residents and a long list of candidates jostling to replace Ms. Raggi have attacked her on an issue that they say encapsulates just how uncivilized it has become: marauding packs of wild boars. Her critics call them “Raggi’s Boars,” swapping viral videos of pigs in Roman dumpsters.“If we want to make a zoo, we are on a good path,” Carlo Calenda, one of the candidates running against Ms. Raggi, said on Italian television.The perceived weakness of Ms. Raggi has drawn 21 opponents across the political spectrum. The main challengers in her re-election bid include a conservative lawyer and two center-left politicians with national profiles. But fringe characters, including “Dr. Seduction” and a Gladiator re-enactor who calls himself “Nero,” have also jumped at the chance of replacing Ms. Raggi, who trails badly in the polls.Virginia Raggi, the incumbent mayor.Fabio Frustaci/EPA, via ShutterstockLocal Italian elections, especially in the major cities, are often considered bellwethers for the broader national mood. Ms. Raggi’s landslide victory in 2016 as the candidate of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement anticipated Five Star’s success at the 2018 national elections.But Five Star’s popularity has plummeted, and Italy is enjoying a rare period of political stability under Prime Minister Mario Draghi, an independent, stripping Rome’s election of such broad ramifications this time around. Winning here is still seen as a measure of strength of the national parties, but this time, municipal issues — traffic, trash and unwanted wildlife — have come to the fore.It is unlikely that any candidate will win a majority of the vote when polls close on Monday, prompting another round of voting and possibly weeks of horse trading that could very well turn Ms. Raggi into a power broker.But she is not conceding anything and has campaigned vigorously in the closing days. She blames the larger region of Lazio, which includes Rome and is run by the center-left Democratic Party, for all of the trash and invasive species. After a stint on Rome’s City Council, and pledging, according to her party’s original rules, that she would never serve more than two terms in public office, Ms. Raggi now argues that five full years running the city is not enough time to change Rome.Carlo Calenda, a center-left candidate for mayor and a former national economic minister.Tiziana Fabi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA full decade, she says, will do the trick.Romans do not seem so sure. The latest polls favor Enrico Michetti, a lawyer and last-minute candidate supported by several center-right parties and by the far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, who is Roman and has a significant base. Mr. Michetti has gained attention for his knack of ducking the news media (Italian reporters call him “Houdini”) and speaking largely about ancient Rome when asked about modern-day problems.“When Caesar died, it looked like everything was over,” Mr. Michetti said in July during a rare appearance in an electoral debate when asked about his idea for the future of Rome. “But then Caesar Octavian Augustus put institutions in the center.”In a telephone interview on Friday, Mr. Michetti defended his talk of Rome’s glory days, which he described as a time of civic-minded governance. “Rome would never have built the pyramids; too much effort in the interest of one individual,” he said. “Instead, Rome built bridges, roads, aqueducts, theaters — anything to serve the collective well-being.”Enrico Michetti, the right-wing alliance candidate. He is leading in the latest polls.Tiziana Fabi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Michetti is trailed by Roberto Gualtieri, the candidate of the center-left Democratic Party. Mr. Gualtieri was Italy’s minister of economy and finance from 2019 until early this year, and before that, he was the chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee in the European Parliament. A historian partial to gray suits, he has emphasized his competence and expertise as a contrast to what critics consider Ms. Raggi’s ineptitude.“Rome can have a rebirth,” he said in a telephone interview, “after the bad administration of these years.”Mr. Gualtieri has campaigned, sometimes with a guitar to liven things up, on the promise to turn Rome, where it often takes roughly forever to get anything done, into a “15-minutes city” where residents can quickly reach any service.But in a familiar dynamic in Italian politics, the center-left vote is split. One of Mr. Gualtieri’s rivals is Mr. Calenda, who was once the country’s economic development minister and who now sits in the European Parliament. A former member of the Democratic Party, Mr. Calenda broke with the party to protest an alliance it made with its former enemy Five Star, which he loathes.Roberto Gualtieri, the center-left candidate of the Democratic Party. He has promised to turn Rome into a “15-minutes city” where residents can quickly reach any service.Tiziana Fabi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Calenda has been more full-throated in his critique of Ms. Raggi, calling her administration “an apocalypse” and “a cosmic disaster,” and seizing on Rome’s reputation as an ungovernable city to argue that only a proven manager like him could get it under control.He said he would spend the first year and a half of his administration fixing the “decorum” of Rome’s streets, focusing on basic services like garbage removal and attending to trees to prevent falling branches from crashing onto cars.He also rejected the speculation of political insiders that, if necessary, he would form an alliance with Mr. Michetti. “I have never heard him say anything intelligent, not even anything normal,” Mr. Calenda said of him.Lorenzo de Sio, the director of the Italian Center of Electoral Studies, said the number of candidates running made the election difficult to call.Many Romans have become so accustomed to blaming Ms. Raggi’s incompetence for the city’s travails that her very name — “La Raggi,” they say — has become a shorthand for everything that is wrong in the city.But many Romans were once captivated by Ms. Raggi, the first woman to hold the office and, at 37 when she took office, Rome’s youngest mayor. She campaigned on promises to break the city’s special interests and make it work for everyone, an appeal that worked especially well in the city’s outermost and least affluent neighborhoods.Wild boars roaming a street in Rome. Ms. Raggi’s critics say the boars encapsulate just how uncivilized the city has become.Remo Casilli/ReutersMany of those voters remain undecided, and candidates like Mr. Michetti and Mr. Calenda, who visited every Roman neighborhood, have sought to woo them. But even at this late hour, Ms. Raggi’s supporters are hopeful that they would eventually come home to her.On Friday morning, a small group of supporters joined Ms. Raggi at a neighborhood market where the mayor inaugurated a municipal food bank for residents struggling to make ends meet. It is the fourth such center to open in Rome since May 2020, a pet project of the mayor’s, as the number of people needing assistance has soared during the pandemic.She arrived to applause and made some remarks. Her supporters complained that despite the mayor having opened kindergartens and gyms and improved parks in the neighborhood, “all people talk about is the boars.”But as Ms. Raggi left, another woman complained to her about how filthy her street had become. The mayor, she said, had furious taxpayers to answer to.Ms. Raggi blamed the problems on what she called corrupt transportation and sanitation agencies. Previous administrations had swept the dirt under the rug, she said, “but when you lift it up, mounds of mud emerged.”“Brava, Virginia!” a supporter shouted. More