Center-left wins Roman mayoral run-off

The center-left candidate for Rome mayor Ignazio Marino comfortably defeated the center-right incumbent in the run-off ballot held in the Italian capital on Sunday and Monday amid a dramatic slump in turnout. According to final results, Marino, a member of the center-left Democratic Party (PD), took 63.9 percent of votes in the second turn defeating the outgoing mayor Gianni Alemanno of former premier Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PdL). Marino, a 58-year-old former surgeon, was a member of the surgical team which in the 1990s performed the only two baboon-to-human liver xeno-transplants in medical history. Elected as a senator for PD in 2006, his election program was mostly focused on social rights, public health and environmentalism. "I realize the responsibility that Rome has given to me ... I promise that I will make every effort to see it regain the international role that it deserves," Marino told a press conference after the victory. He acknowledged there are a number of issues, from poverty and unemployment to traffic and waste, which need to be urgently addressed in the Italian capital. "Solidarity is a value of the center-left that has prevailed tonight," the new mayor said. "I phoned to Marino to congratulate for the electoral result, which was clear," Alemanno said. "The center-right has lost its more important city .. and actually its results were not positive throughout Italy. We have to reflect about this," he added. The center-left won all the 11 provincial capitals among the 67 local authorities where the run-off ballot was held with around six million Italians eligible to vote. The provincial capitals switched to the center-left included key strongholds of the center-right such as Viterbo in central Italy as well as Treviso and Imperia in the north. In Siena, a town in Tuscany region traditionally of the center-left, victory was for the PD-backed candidate despite a major scandal at the Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) bank dishonored the image of the local government. The election was closely watched as a test for the fragile Italian left-right coalition government led by the PD head Enrico Letta and backed by the PdL, its main opponent. However, voter disappointment with scandal-hit political parties was a noteworthy element evident from the dramatic slump in turnout, local observers highlighted. Overall turnout was 48.5 percent, down 11 percent compared to the first round, which was already a big drop on the equivalent local elections in 2008.