Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino's two
and a half year term at the helm of the Italian capital ended
prematurely Friday when 26 councillors quit, bringing his
executive crashing down as he vainly tried to hang on after a
U-turn on resigning over an expenses scandal.
The councillors comprised all 19 from his own Democratic
Party (PD), whose leader, Premier Matteo Renzi, has long
distanced himself from the controversial mayor.
They were assisted in pulling the plug by two other
coalition members and by five opposition councillors who were
also keen to end Marino's tenure and did not mind collaborating
with the enemy to send him packing.
Rome Prefect Franco Gabrielli will now have to name a
commissioner to take over the running of the city, which is
bracing for a massive influx of pilgrims for the Roman Catholic
Church's Holy Year Jubilee of Mercy, from December 8 to November
20 next year.
Elections to name Marino's successor - in which he might
conceivably stand himself - are expected in the spring, but may
come later next year.
Marino criticised the manner in which he had been
unseated, and slammed Renzi, at a press conference following his
ouster.
"I was stabbed by 26 names and surnames but by one
only who sent them", he said.
"I don't like to see, as a Democrat, that the PD went to a
notary with people who militated in Berlusconi's party".
The 26 councillors "submitted (to party bosses) and
resigned to avoid a public debate.
"I was denied a debate in the assembly and I
still demand to know why.
"They should have come (to a council debate)," he said,
calling the manoeuvre "the mark of a politics that decides
outside the democratic seats, reducing the elected to people who
ratify decisions taken elsewhere: that denies democracy".
Marino said "I did not at all have a stormy relationship
with Renzi, in the last year I had no relationship (with him) at
all."
He said the PD "has disappointed me in the conduct of its
leaders because it has given up on democracy, betraying what it
has in its DNA".
But he added: "You can kill a team but you can't stop
ideas.
"I hope there is no turning back, it's not the future of
Ignazio Marino that's at stake but Rome's future".
Renzi replied by saying Marino was "not the victim of a
place coup but a mayor who lost contact with his city, with his
people".
He said the PD "is concerned about Rome, not the ambitions
of an individual, even if he is mayor.
"The PD is interested in Rome.
"And that's why we'll do our all to make the Jubilee with
Rome what the Expo has been for Milan. This page is closed,
enough polemics, everyone to work".
The last day of Marino's up-and-down ride was also marked
by the confirmation that he is under criminal investigation over
the expenses case.
But the now former first citizen insisted that it was
"just a formality".
"Notification of a probe is a formal act needed to conduct
investigations," Marino said when asked about reports he was
being probed over his expenses.
"I'm convinced that I have explained my side of the story
well and have been transparent".
On Thursday Marino withdrew the resignation he tendered
earlier in the month over the expenses scandal linked to alleged
use of his council credit card for personal dinners.
The U-turn set the mayor, a surgeon by profession, on
a collision course with the PD, which pulled its support for
Marino's executive on the grounds that the expenses row was just
the last in a long series of furores that mean the mayor could
not regain the trust of the Roman public.
Corriere della Sera also reported Friday that Marino is
being probed for aggravated fraud against the State in an
investigation related to Image Onlus, a not-for-profit he
founded in 2005 to provide health care in Honduras and Congo.
Rome's former executive transport councillor Stefano
Esposito called Marino a "liar" on Friday.
"After reading this article, I must acknowledge that I put
my trust in a liar," Esposito said via Twitter. "Shame".
Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano said the on-off
resignation saga had "taken on the guise of a farce".
It said "beyond all judgement there remains the damage,
also of image, wreaked on a city accustomed in its history to
see all manner of things, but rarely exposed to similar
affairs".
Despite losing the support of Renzi and the PD, Marino had
vowed "not to disappoint" supporters, quoting Che Guevara's
saying "We are realists, we want the impossible" and also
likening himself to Chilean leftist leader Salvador Allende.
The PD pulled the plug after months of sometimes grudging
support through woes including the 'Capital Mafia' case, an
illegally parked car, the glitzy funeral of a mafia boss and
Pope Francis's public disowning of Marino after he claimed to
have been invited to an event in Philadelphia.
The city of Rome is standing as civil plaintiff in
the Capital Mafia trial, starting November 5, involving
allegations that an organised crime group muscled in on council
contracts worth millions including work with migrants and Roma.
Most of the Capital Mafia cases began under Marino's
rightwing predecessor Gianni Alemanno.
Marino has claimed credit for unearthing much of the
graft.
But aside from the rows that have undermined his position,
Marino's record on trying to solve Rome's many woes, from
potholes to trash, traffic, public transport, graffiti and
general urban neglect that has won international attention, has
been spotty at best - and he has had an unhappy knack of being
on holiday or otherwise absent while some of the controversies
were peaking.
However, his supporters saw him as a clean politician who
has tried to tackle problems linked to powerful vested
interests, and even his opponents have recognised the basic
honesty of the former liver transplant surgeon.
His nickname, the Martian, was testament to a lack of
worldliness admired by fans who saw him as a fresh-faced and
welcome outsider and slammed by critics who said he lacked the
down-to-earth nous to grapple with the sometimes greasy
deal-making mechanics of running the problematic metropolis.
The end of Marino's bid to stay afloat was overshadowed by
comments from Italian anti-corruption czar Raffaele Cantone, who
said Milan was again Italy's capital of morality and that Rome,
by contrast, does not have graft antibodies.
Marino countered by saying "Rome has antibodies and they
are working".
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