Morassut calls for 'renewal' of Rome

(ANSA) - Rome, February 8 - There is need for "renewal" within Rome's city administration, mayoral candidate in centre-left primaries Roberto Morassut said Monday.
    "A new ruling class needs to be selected to run the Campidoglio," the former Rome executive councillor for urban planning under the Veltroni administration said. "Skills and energy need to be grafted to restore the efficiency of the city machinery," he added added.
    Morassut is running against deputy Lower House Speaker Roberto Giachetti, also of the PD, in the primaries in March.
    Stafano Fassina, a former junior economy minister who left the PD last year to join the Italian Left (SI), has announced his intention to run for the mayorship without taking part in the race to chose the centre-left candidate on grounds his former and current parties have noting in common. Morassut said Monday the only hope for the centre-left in Rome is to build a broad coalition, however. "A project for government is needed that involves the radical left but is also directed towards the moderate centre," he said. "In Rome the centre-left has always won the elections like that and has always governed well when it has been able to put together a broad coalition," Morassut insisted.
    Local opinion polls put the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement (M5S) safely in the lead in Rome in the wake of the Mafia Capitale scandal involving allegations of infiltration by organized crime into city contracts.