Ignazio Marino returned to
work on Friday, the day after he quit as Rome mayor over an
expenses scandal, the latest in a long series of furores to dog
his two-year-old administration.
Marino, who lost the backing of his own centre-left
Democratic Party (PD), will continue to run the city until a
commissioner is nominated to replace him ahead of municipal
elections next year.
The outgoing mayor, who is a doctor by profession, is
depicted as incompetent by opposition parties, who have blamed
him for a series of problems to hit the city, including public
transport disruption and degradation in several parts of the
capital.
But his supporters say the expense scandal and other
furores, including a visit to Philadelphia for the World Meeting
of Families which Pope Francis said the Church did not invite
him to, were cooked up by enemies whose vested interests he had
touched.
Among other things, Marino tried to tackle corruption and
nepotism in the city's transport and refuge agencies, incensed
many extending pedestrian zones in Rome's historic center and
also incurred the wrath of the right by taking strong stands in
favor of gay marriage and the integration of immigrants.
"If those (expense) receipts had not arrived, sooner or
later they would have said that my socks had holes in or they
would have put cocaine in my pocket," Marino said in an
interview published in Friday's edition of La Stampa.
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