Snap municipal elections were held in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

on 5 and 19 June 2016, to elect the Mayor of Rome and 48 members of the

City Council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...

, as well as the fifteen presidents and more than 400 councillors of the 15 '' municipi'' in which the municipality is divided. The elections were called following the fall of the former Mayor of Rome Ignazio Marino, who was ousted from office after more than half of the members of the City Council resigned in October 2015.Rosie Scammell, "Rubbish on the streets, corruption in the air: Rome looks for a clean-up candidate"

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

, 12 June 2016 The first round of voting on 5 June produced no outright winner, resulting in a run-off election on 19 June between

Virginia Raggi Virginia Elena Raggi (; born 18 July 1978) is an Italian lawyer and politician who served as Mayor of Rome from 2016 to 2021 as part of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S). Raggi was both the first candidate from her party and first ...

, the candidate of the

Five Star Movement The Five Star Movement ( it, Movimento 5 Stelle , M5S) is a political party in Italy. Its leader and president is Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy from 2018 until 2021. The M5S was founded on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a comedian an ...

(M5S), and

Roberto Giachetti Roberto Giachetti (born 24 April 1961) is an Italian politician, member of Italia Viva and of the Transnational Radical Party. He has been a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies since 2001. Biography Roberto Giachetti was born in Rome in ...

, member of the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

(PD). Raggi won the mayoral election with two-thirds of the vote, and her party alone won a majority in the

City Council of Rome The City Council of Rome or Capitoline Assembly (Italian: ''Assemblea Capitolina'') is the top tier legislative body of Rome, Italy. It consists of the directly elected mayor of Rome and of an elected 48-member assembly. It represents a legislat ...

with 29 of the 48 seats. The results were widely reported as a major breakthrough for the

, which had previously been seen as a

protest party A protest vote (also called a blank, null, spoilt vote, spoiled, or "none of the above" vote) is a vote cast in an election to demonstrate dissatisfaction with the choice of candidates or the current politics, political system. Protest voting take ...

rather than a significant political force. At the same round of elections, M5S also won Turin municipal elections.

Background

On 12 October 2015, the incumbent mayor Ignazio Marino announced his resignation amidst an accusation of expense scandal that had been made by some opposition parties (especially

and the right-wing

Brothers of Italy Brothers of Italy ( it, Fratelli d'Italia, FdI) is a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party in Italy. It is led by Giorgia Meloni, the incumbent Prime Minister of Italy and the first woman to serve in the position. Accor ...

), but on 29 October he retired the resignation. Nevertheless on 30 October he was ousted from his position after 26 of the 48 members of the City Council resigned. The mayorlater was replaced by a government-appointed commissioner and snap municipal elections were called.

Centre-left primary election

As in 2013, the

centre-left coalition The centre-left coalition ( it, coalizione di centro-sinistra) is an political alliance, alliance of list of political parties in Italy, political parties in Italy active, under several forms and names, since 1995 when The Olive Tree (Italy), Th ...

decided to hold the primary election on 6 March 2016 to decide its mayoral candidate. There were 6 main candidates, all from

, since the left-wing parties decided to break the alliance and present their own mayoral candidate. Among the most popular candidates there were deputies

and

Roberto Morassut Roberto Morassut (born 16 November 1963) is an Italian politician. Biography Morassut graduated in Literature in 1987 with a contemporary history thesis on the administration of Rome from 1947 to 1952. Since the years of high school he became a m ...

. More than 47,000 citizens took part to the primary election which was won by Giachetti:

M5S primary election

As it previously did in different occasion, also the

decided to hold a primary election to chose its mayoral candidate. Many candidates took part to the closed primary which was held online on 23 February 2016.

, one of four members of the City Council elected for the M5S in 2013, won the primary with 45% of votes.

Voting system

The voting system is used for all mayoral elections in Italy, in the city with a population higher than 15,000 inhabitants. Under this system voters express a

direct election Direct election is a system of choosing political officeholders in which the voters directly cast ballots for the persons or political party that they desire to see elected. The method by which the winner or winners of a direct election are cho ...

for the mayor or an

indirect election An indirect election or ''hierarchical voting'' is an election in which voters do not choose directly among candidates or parties for an office (direct voting system), but elect people who in turn choose candidates or parties. It is one of the old ...

voting for the party of the candidate's coalition. If no candidate receives 50% of votes, the top two candidates go to a second round after two weeks. This gives a result whereby the winning candidate may be able to claim majority support, although it is not guaranteed. The election of the City Council is based on a direct choice for the candidate with a preference vote: the candidate with the majority of the preferences is elected. The number of the seats for each party is determined proportionally.

Parties and candidates

This is a list of the parties (and their respective leaders) which participated in the election.

Opinion polling

Results

''Municipi'' election

All the presidents were elected on the second round, since none obtained more than 50% of votes on the first round of voting. The president of Municipio X wasn't elected since the ''municipio'' was under the administration of a Special Commissioner nominated after the municipal council had been dissolved in 2015 due to mafia association. Table below shows the results for each ''municipio'' with the percentage for each coalition on the second round: Source
Municipality of Rome - Electoral Service
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References

{{Elections in Rome 2016 elections in Italy

Elections in Rome 2010s in Rome June 2016 events in Italy