Italy's Five Star Inflicts Setback on Renzi With Anti-Elite Win in Rome
- Lawyer Virginia Raggi wins landslide in Italian capital
- Five Star Movement gains threaten premier’s reform agenda
Virginia Raggi, Rome's mayor-elect, poses for photographers during a news conference at the Five Star Movement's campaign headquarters in Rome, early in the morning of June 20, 2016.
Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/BloombergItalians elected candidates of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement to run city halls in the capital Rome and Turin in the north, in a setback for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s plans to overhaul the country’s political system.
Virginia Raggi, a 37-year-old lawyer turned politician, took 67.2 percent of the vote in Rome, trouncing center-left candidate Roberto Giachetti with 32.8 percent, the Interior Ministry said early Monday. In Turin, once the country’s industrial heartland, Raggi’s Five Star colleague Chiara Appendino won the mayor’s race with 54.6 percent of the vote, defeating incumbent mayor Piero Fassino with 45.4 percent.