Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement has a large lead in the first round of voting for the mayor of Rome, piling pressure on the prime minister, Matteo Renzi, ahead of his career-defining reform referendum due in about four months.
The Five Star Movement, campaigning hard against corruption, also made gains in other Italian cities in Sunday’s voting, echoing the rise of anti-establishment parties across Europe.
With more than 80% of voting districts counted, the Five Star candidate in Rome, Virginia Raggi, led with about 36% of the vote, ahead of the candidate from Renzi’s centre-left Democratic party (PD) with almost 25%.
Raggi and the PD’s candidate, Roberto Giachetti, now head to a run-off vote on 19 June.
“The wind is changing, this is the moment,” Raggi told her supporters in the early hours of Monday. “We are facing a historic moment,” the 37-year-old lawyer added. “The Romans are ready to turn a page and I am ready to govern this city and to restore Rome to the splendour and beauty that it deserves.”
The first-round results were a clear setback for Renzi, who has staked his political future on a referendum in October over a contested constitutional reform, which is aimed at bringing stability to politics and end Italy’s tradition of revolving-door governments.
The 41-year-old prime minister has said he will stand down if he loses the referendum, a gamble that could usher in a new era of political chaos and revive market turbulence in the eurozone’s third-largest economy.
Unlike other non-traditional parties which have flourished across Europe since the 2008 financial crisis, the Five Star Movement straddles ideological divides, focusing its anger on rampant graft in Italy more than austerity or immigration.
Victory in Rome, which has been battered by corruption scandals, would represent a major step forward for the party, which was founded in 2009 by comedian Beppe Grillo.
Success in governing the Eternal City could prove a springboard to winning power in general elections that are due in 2018, but could come earlier depending on the outcome of the referendum.
Renzi played little part in the municipal election campaign until the final week, saying the vote reflected local concerns not national interests, and promising it would have no impact on his government.
Raggi will be the city’s first female mayor if she wins the run-off vote on 19 June, and promises to crackdown on corruption, cronyism and everyday illegality such as fare-dodging and double-parking that have become the norm in dilapidated Rome.
The city’s previous mayor came from the PD and was forced out in October after a scandal over his dining expenses.
That affair left Renzi with a mountain to climb in Rome, but he had hopes of a clear victory in Milan, where he handpicked the PD candidate, Giuseppe Sala, who headed last year’s successful Expo World Fair in Italy’s financial capital.
Instead, with the vote count almost final in Milan, Sala took 42% of the vote, less than a percentage point more than centre-right candidate Stefano Parisi, leaving the two to square off again in two weeks’ time.
In Turin, historical home of Fiat, the incumbent centre-left mayor, Piero Fassino, led the field with 42%, but will have a tough second round against Five Star candidate Chiara Appendino, who got 31%.
In Naples, leftist incumbent Luigi de Magistris, an independent former prosecutor who has declared the city a “Renzi-free zone”, won 42% in the first round and will be challenged by a centre-right candidate in the run-off.
In Bologna, a traditional centre-left stronghold, the PD-backed candidate won about 40%, less than expected, and will face a rightwing candidate in the run-off.
