Binmen and bus drivers test Rome's embattled mayor

CAN big cities, with their notorious penchant for graft, be entrusted to decent but inexperienced mayors? That question has been getting an airing this summer in Rome, where the mayor, Ignazio Marino (pictured), has been under fire over deteriorating civic services. On July 28th Mr Marino was forced to reshuffle his city cabinet. Across much of Europe, voters angered by corruption are turning to political outsiders; in Spain voters have chosen mayors backed by the left-wing Podemos movement in both Barcelona and Madrid. The beleaguered Mr Marino's plight may serve them as a cautionary tale.

Mr Marino is less of an outsider than Spain's new mayors. He entered politics in 2006 as a senator for the Democratic Party (PD), the dominant force of Italy's centre-left. Three years later, he even ran for the leadership (and came last of three candidates). But he had spent much of his life as a surgeon, and part of his career in America. And since Mr Marino was born in the far north-western city of Genoa, from the standpoint of cliquey Rome he might as well be (as one commentator remarked) “a martian”. In 2013, when Mr Marino defeated several party stalwarts in a primary election to become the PD candidate for mayor, he did so with the support of two radical left-wing groups. The voters who elected him were hungry for an alternative to sleazy professional politicians.