Success of Five Star Movement’s Virginia Raggi and Chiara Appendino in mayoral elections is setback for PM Matteo Renzi

The Italian political landscape was reshaped on Monday as two candidates from the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) were elected to lead the cities of Rome and Turin, presenting a direct challenge to the centre-left prime minister, Matteo Renzi.



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Virginia Raggi, the M5S candidate in the Italian capital, declared a “new era” after winning 67% of the vote in a runoff ballot against the Democratic party’s (PD) Roberto Giachetti, who conceded defeat less than an hour after polls closed.

“The result is above all expectation,” Raggi, 37, said in her victory speech. “It really is a historic result, and we must work every day for the next five years, because it will be tough. We know how Rome is, but the tougher it is, the greater it will be. We will succeed in doing what we have planned to do.”

Raggi, whose victory had been widely anticipated, was joined by crowds of supporters, chanting, “Oh, Virginia, mayor of Rome!” and waving M5S flags.

A greater shock to the establishment came in Turin, the first capital of Italy and a city famed for the carmaker Fiat, where the heavyweight incumbent, Piero Fassino, was ousted by the M5S’s Chiara Appendino. Appendino, 31, clinched nearly 55% of the vote in a run-off against her PD rival.

“It has been a long journey and finally our time has arrived. We have the possibility to build a new urban community, but above all we have a duty to heal a city which has been deeply injured,” said Appendino, after the results were announced.

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The M5S’s success in the two main cities will have unnerved Renzi, who is the leader of the PD, and reflects the electorate’sdiscontent with mainstream political parties.

But the prime minister sought to shrug off the defeats on Monday, saying it was normal for some councils of the ruling party to be unsuccessful during the first legislature of a government.

“There’s not only one person who has interpreted this need for change,” he said. “But as we have lost some councils we should try to reflect, as the Democratic Party, to give our best and be stronger the next time.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chiara Appendino celebrates her victory with supporters in Turin. Photograph: Alessandro Di Marco/EPA

Renzi’s reputation was saved by the result in Milan, where the PD’s Giuseppe Sala clinched a narrow victory against his centre-right rival, Stefano Parisi. Sala made his name in the city as chief executive of last year’s Expo world fair, which was deemed a success despite preparations being marred by protest and corruption scandals.

In Naples the PD was out of the race before Sunday’s runoff election, with independent Luigi De Magistris being reelected by clinching two-thirds of the vote against the centre-right’s Gianni Lettieri.

While across Italy the picture is mixed, reaction to the results on Monday was dominated by the M5S’ success, which came seven years after the political movement was founded by comedian Beppe Grillo. Tapping into discontent during the economic crisis, Grillo’s party received a quarter of the vote in the 2013 national elections but until now had failed to shake off its reputation as a protest party.

Its candidates have in the past been elected as mayors of a handful of medium-sized towns, but never has it clinched positions as powerful as those it seized on Sunday.

The elections marked an apparent shift in strategy from Grillo, who previously filled piazzas but who has taken a step back from frontline campaigns in recent months. In Rome for the elections, he appeared just briefly from his hotel window overnight to the delight of supporters below.

“Now it’s our turn. And it’s only the beginning,” he wrote on his popular blog, where the M5S began.

With Raggi now due to take the reins in Rome, the M5S will enter the heart of decision-making in the country’s capital. The new mayor is well aware of citizens’ bitter disappointment with her predecessors’ performance – not least the PD’s Ignazio Marino, who resigned last autumn, and the need to gain their ongoing support if she is to hold on to her seat.

“Everyone must do something small, all together, this is the change that we want,” she said. “Otherwise, if everyone works only for themselves, there’s no future. Or better, the future will be like the past.”

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Her focus on civil engagement was echoed by Appendino, who promised to listen to residents’ complaints: “Rebuilding trust between citizens and their administration. Everyone from Turin must feel that city hall is like their home; the door will always be open.”

Raggi undoubtedly faces the harder task in Rome, where she has served as a councillor for the past three years. The city has been leaderless for eight months, since Marino quit following an expenses scandal. Rome has since been run by a special commissioner, Francesco Paolo Tronca, while the country’s anti-corruption watchdog has kept a close eye on the administration.

Battling corruption has been one of Raggi’s main campaign promises, tapping into public anger about the “mafia capitale” scandal, in which it emerged that city hall officials were involved in stealing millions from the state. Such criminality has contributed to the dire state of Rome’s public services, including rubbish collection and public transport, which are the top two complaints of residents.

Other challenges faced by Raggi and Appendino come from within the political sphere; a male-dominated world where women have struggled to be taken seriously. Before the first round of voting on 5 June, Silvio Berlusconi refused to support one of the leading rightwing candidates, Giorgia Meloni, arguing that her pregnancy made her unfit for public office.

On Monday the president of the lower house of parliament, Laura Boldrini, who has suffered misogynistic insults and threats of rape during her political career, celebrated the victories of Raggi and Appendino. “Rome and Turin will be administered by two young women. Congratulations and good luck with your work to mayors Virginia Raggi and Chiara Appendino,” Boldrini wrote on Twitter.

Female mayors are such a novelty in Italy that the election of Raggi and Appendino has sparked a linguistic debate, over whether the word mayor (“sindaco”) has a feminine form.

Use of the alternative, “sindaca”, has been criticised as a distortion of the Italian language, and both winners have cautiously used the male form.

But linguistic purists were on Monday referred to the country’s highest linguistic authority, the Accademia della Crusca, which back in 2012 deemed a feminine mayor “legitimate and acceptable”.