ROME (AP) – An anti-establishment party founded by a comic has triumphed in Italian mayoral runoff elections, trouncing Premier Matteo Renzi’s candidates in Rome and elsewhere.
The 5-Star Movement candidate in Rome, Virginia Raggi, snared 67.2 percent of the vote in a two-person runoff Sunday, becoming the city’s first female mayor and, at 37, its youngest. Another 5-Star candidate won in Turin.
Renzi’s Democratic Party has been weakened by defections and a sprawling corruption scandal in Rome, which has tainted local Democrats as well as conservative parties. He didn’t immediately comment.
Beppe Grillo, the caustic comic who founded the movement, said Monday that “from today, everything changes, now it’s our turn.” Luigi Di Maio, a 5-Star lawmaker, said the vote showed his party’s “the only credible force” that can defeat Renzi’s Democrats nationally.