It is after an odyssey of 3,000 years that a woman has become the mayor of Rome known as the “eternal city.”
A lawyer and councilor Virginia Raggi belongs to Five Star (M5S) Movement party, a political group established in 2009 by an Italian comedian and popular blogger Beppe Grillo and Gianroberto Casaleggio a web strategist. Casaleggio passed away in 2016 and since then the leadership responsibilities have rested with Grillo.
Raggi 37, has pledged to make sure the city is clean and improve its transport system .
She said during her campaign that “After the birth of my son, I found myself having to navigate the stroller between cars parked on sidewalks and through abandoned parks.” “That’s when I started getting interested in local politics,” she added.
Raggi wants to end the corruption and in her victory speech she said “A new era is beginning with us, we’ll work to bring back legality and transparency to the city’s institutions.”
Her critics think that she won’t be able to run the city of Rome that has a population of 3 million because she does not have enough political experience required for this job. “She was just a councilor in last three years,” said one of his critics.
But elsewhere Romans have greeted the news of her political rise to the high office.
“Finally Rome has a woman mayor, this is a historic moment. At a time when equal opportunities are still a myth, this victory is of extraordinary value,” a mother wrote on her Facebook page.
Another M5S woman member Chiara Appendino has defeated the Prime Minister Matteo Ranzi’s Democratic Party (PD) member and became the mayor of Italy’s industrialist city Turin.
The Five Star Movement party is an anti-establishment party and named their party on five issues facing the Italian public namely populist, environmentalists, anti-globalist and Eurosceptic.
The party leaders view their party not just another political group but a movement against social and economic ills that have translated Italy as the most inefficient government of Europe.
Italy’s middle class has suffered from ill economy and corruption, youth has been frustrated when they see other European countries having a lot better welfare system.
The M5S says it has answers for them. One member of the party said “as of today the movement is not just about protest: it will be about translating protest into solving problems that others have failed to do – by bringing a novel approach to politics. The M5S does, in fact, share with other successful movements the capability to address two malaises that are putting at risk the very cohesion of western societies.
