Rome Mayor
Starts Bid to Lead Italy
in Post-Prodi Era
Bloomberg News
By Flavia Krause-Jackson
June 27, 2007
Walter Veltroni, mayor of Rome and
one of Italy's most popular politicians, today starts his
campaign to succeed Prime Minister Romano Prodi as
the ruling coalition's leader and
next candidate for premier.
Veltroni, 51, will announce in Turin his candidacy to head the new
Democratic Party, a combination of the Democrats of the Left and Daisy parties,
the two largest in Prodi's
coalition. Leaders of both parties have endorsed Veltroni,
meaning he will probably face just token opposition in an Oct. 14 primary.
Prodi has pledged to retire from politics when his term
ends in 2011, though few political analysts expect his government to last that
long. Veltroni stepping up now, more than three
months before the primary, will help end the leadership debate and raise the
profile of the new party.
``Veltroni has been pushed to the forefront as it's becoming increasingly obvious that this
government is fragile and that Prodi's
days are numbered,'' Antonio Noto, director
of Rome-based polling company IPR Marketing, said in an interview. ``We are
already entering the post-Prodi era.''
Prodi, who isn't
a member of any of the nine parties in his government, lobbied to create the new
party to legitimize his leadership and forge consensus among his disparate
allies. Instead, Veltroni's
candidacy marks a changing of the guard after a decade when politics was
dominated by Prodi, 68, and Silvio
Berlusconi, 70, who have each served twice as prime minister.
`Everything
Changes'
With Veltroni in the picture, ``everything changes,''
Gianfranco Fini, former deputy prime minister and
head of the National Alliance party, who is considered a possible successor to
Berlusconi as opposition leader, said in an interview with newspaper Corriere della Sera on June 23. ``Prodi
has been archived.''
With only a
one-seat majority in the Senate, Prodi's
grip on power has been tenuous. The loss of a foreign-policy vote in February,
nine months into a five-year term, almost brought down the government. Losses
in local elections last month further weakened Prodi,
and his popularity has sunk to a record low amid constant bickering among his
nine coalition allies, which range from communist to Catholic parties.
Prodi came to power last year by defeating Berlusconi by
the narrowest margin in modern Italian history. By contrast, Veltroni crushed the opposition and was re-elected as mayor
with 63 percent of the vote in 2006.
Lifting
Support
Veltroni's
leadership of the Democratic Party would boost its support by almost a third to
35 percent, an Ispo Ltd. poll showed. The survey had
a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. That's
more than the 31 percent the Olive Tree coalition, a previous alliance of the
Daisy and Democrats of the Left parties, won in the 2006 election, when
Berlusconi's Forza
Italia was the most popular party with 24 percent.
As mayor, Veltroni is credited with improving the economy of Italy's
largest city and raising Rome's profile by promoting tourism and the arts. Time
Magazine put Veltroni on the cover of its 2005 May
issue devoted to the world's top
mayors, whom it dubbed the ``town hall titans.'' A movie buff and arts connoisseur, he started the Rome film festival and
attracted visitors with an annual all-night party featuring concerts, theater
and art exhibits.
Role
Model
Veltroni is also a prolific writer, having published 17 books
over three decades including ``The broken dream: The ideas of Robert Kennedy'' on his
childhood hero and political role model. One of his favorite quotes of Bobby
Kennedy, which he often repeats, is ``GDP measures everything ... except that
which makes life worthwhile.''
A former
communist, Veltroni could also help appeal to the
Green and communist parties that are part of Prodi's coalition and whose support the new
Democratic Party would probably need to govern.
``He's the ideal candidate for us as future prime
minister,''
Fausto Bertinotti, leader
of the Refounded Communist party, said in an
interview with La Stampa newspaper. Bertinotti pulled his party out of Prodi's first government in 1998, causing its
collapse.
Leaders of the
Daisy Party and the Democrats of the Left, or DS, were also quick to support Veltroni's
candidacy.
`Enormous
Consensus'
``I can't help but be pleased at the enormous consensus
that has formed around'' Veltroni, said Daisy
Party leader Francesco Rutelli, another former Rome mayor who lost to
Berlusconi for prime minister in 2001.
Veltroni, who has been mayor for seven years, also has the
backing of Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema,
a former center- left premier and DS leader, and Piero
Fassino, the current head of the party.
It's no coincidence Veltroni
picked Turin,
home to Fiat SpA and his beloved Juventus
soccer team, to announce his candidacy. It was in the north, Italy's
industrial heartland, that the ruling coalition suffered its heaviest defeats
in May local elections, losing control of key towns such as Verona.
Veltroni has never run for the post of prime minister. The
bespectacled film-school graduate began his political career as a communist,
helping to transform the party into the more moderate Democrats of the Left. He
served as deputy prime minister between 1996 and 1998 under Prodi
and then lost out in a power struggle that saw D'Alema prevail and become premier. After that
setback, he ran for mayor of Rome.
He is married with two children.
To contact the
reporter on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in Rome at fjackson@bloomberg.net
.