Center-right solidifies gains in Italy
Another instance of how our European allies have been turned away by America's bullying tactics. | ROME: Two weeks after sweeping national elections, Italy's center-right parties confirmed they had successfully captured the mood of the country after winning runoff votes in several cities, including a closely watched race in Rome.
Promising to crack down on crime, the center-right candidate Gianni Alemanno, who ran with the conservative People of Freedom party, defeated Francesco Rutelli, who had served as mayor of the capital from 1993 to 2001. Alemanno won a comfortable majority with nearly 54 percent of the vote. He will be the first rightist leader to govern Rome since the end of World War II.
Losing the vote dealt a double blow to the departing mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, who left city politics to become the leader of the newly formed Democratic Party, which lost the April 13-14 national elections to the conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi.
Posted by: Steve White 2008-04-29 |