Elected mayors - the Italian way

Apr 20 2007

As the Mail's petition for a referendum on elected mayors continues, political analyst Chris Game, from the University of Birmingham, looks at how they have fared in Italy and how one Italian mayor made UK headlines.

MANCHESTER United's website warning to its fans travelling to Rome last week proved well-founded.

Serie A football matches, with their regular clashes between the clubs' 'Ultra' supporters and the baton-wielding carabinieri police are not occasions for the faint-hearted.

But United did themselves no favours in upsetting the Mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni. For Veltroni is precisely the kind of 'big local leader' that many people, including Tony Blair, think Birmingham needs - and he's popular with it.

And he leapt to the defence of his city's honour against a barrage of criticism over hooliganism and policing.

In fact, Veltroni, like his predecessor Francesco Rutelli, is almost certainly more widely known and recognised outside his own city than our own council leader, Mike Whitby, is within his.

Italy is one of several European countries that have recently embraced the idea of directly elected mayors.

In Italy's case, this was part of a reform package to sharpen public accountability and reduce the dominance of the national political parties and their pervasive practices of bribery and favouritism.

In many cities, including Rome, a class of 'new mayors' emerged that greatly improved the governance of their cities and became increasingly prominent in the national political arena.

Rutelli, for instance, was almost as well-known for his surrealist art works as for his radical politics before his 1993 election as mayor.

Having successfully organised Rome's millennial celebrations and the massive influx of Christian pilgrims, he went on to challenge Silvio Berlusconi for the premiership, and is currently the national Minister of Welfare and Culture.

Walter Veltroni had his own triumph with the Pope's funeral, but his real transforming impact can be seen throughout the city in its flourishing tourism, its restored buildings, fountains and parks, its attention to the environment, its better public services and its almost incredibly improved public transportation.

A former journalist, he is also a genuine enthusiast for the arts, editing his own CD compilation to raise money for the installation of water wells in Mozambique, and somehow finding time too to continue to write books.

Last year's production was a novel - La Scoperta dellÕAlba (Discovering the Dawn) - but an earlier title was 'Football is a Science to be Loved'.

Veltroni's Roman voters obviously approve, re-electing him overwhelmingly last May, and he is increasingly spoken of as a future Prime Minister.

In Birmingham, though, I just wonder. I bet there'd be a curmudgeon somewhere complaining about his council tax subsidising the mayor's literary career.

To make YOUR views known to Birmingham City Council, download a petition form from www.birminghammail.net