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Rome's first woman mayor to run for second term

11 August 2020 20:15 (UTC +04:00)

Rome mayor Virginia Raggi, from the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, has announced plans to run for a second term, hoping to steal a march on rivals in a long campaign for next year’s vote, APA reports citing Reuters.

Raggi, 42, became the Eternal City’s first woman mayor when elected in 2016, in a major breakthrough for 5-Star ahead of national polls two years later when it won almost twice as many votes as its nearest rival.

Her early years as mayor were dogged by resignations from her team, the arrest for corruption of a top aide and chronic problems with trash collection.

In November 2018, she was acquitted of accusations of lying over the appointment of the capital’s head of tourism.

Since then, the pressure on her has eased and city hall has made progress in road repairs, public transport and consolidating finances.

“You can’t change Rome in five years, but you can turn things in the right direction, and we have turned things in the right direction,” Raggi told daily Il Fatto Quotidiano in an interview on Tuesday, confirming her aspiration for another term.

She faces an uphill task. 5-Star is polling at around 16% nationally compared with the 32% it won at the 2018 election.