Italy Repudiates Old Guard in Mayoral Races

In mayoral races across the nation, Italians on Sunday punished the major parties that have run the country for 40 years, exit polls indicated. It was the first big test of voter sentiment after a year of scandals.

The elections in 122 cities and more than 1,000 small towns marked the first time that Italians nationwide have directly voted for mayors, a change brought on by a growing cry for electoral reform.

“We were expecting it,” said a jubilant Umberto Bossi, whose Milan-based Northern League triumphed in important municipal races in Milan and Turin, according to exit polls conducted for Italian television networks.

The party had campaigned on an anti-corruption platform. Milan was the city where the first arrests in the scandals were made 16 months ago. Since then, more than 2,000 politicians and business leaders have been implicated.

Before Sunday, only small towns in Sicily had elected mayors directly, having instituted the reform two years ago. But amid ever-widening scandals, Parliament earlier this year passed a law so that direct elections apply to larger cities as well.

Italians used to vote for political parties, and bosses of the winning party would choose who would take office. The new system--also to be instituted in the Senate--is expected to make politicians more accountable.

“Today, for the first time in the history of the Italian republic, we vote more for the men than for the parties,” Paolo Mieli, editor in chief of the national daily Corriere della Sera, wrote on Sunday’s front page.

Exit polls indicated that voters were keeping to the pattern set by 1992 parliamentary elections and a few, scattered local elections since then: punishing the Christian Democrats, who have dominated national politics since World War II, the Socialists and former Communists.

Winners were the anti-Mafia party, La Rete, and the Northern League (Lega Nord).

In Milan, projections indicated that Christian Democrat candidates for City Council were winning just 8.7% of the vote, down 11% from the last city elections in 1990.

The Democrat Party of the Left (former Communists), also hit by the scandals, was winning 12.3%, down 6.3% from 1990. Socialists appeared to be suffering the worst setbacks, having tumbled to 2.5%, a 15.9% plunge from 1990 local voting.