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.

Two years later, what they have is a city in visible disarray. Parks are strewn with litter and rubbish bins overflowing. It is the sweatiest month of the year in a hot city. Yet travellers on Rome’s severely inadequate underground railway network have been made to wait for more than half an hour for trains in which there is insufficient (or non-existent) air conditioning. Wildcat strikes by drivers have created similar delays in the city's bus network. Critical articles in the British and American press have added a dose of embarrassment to the anger and frustration ordinary Romans already felt.

Some of this can be fairly blamed on Mr Marino’s inexperience. But many of Rome’s problems are the result of factors beyond his control: the maladministration of his predecessors, Italy’s economic stagnation over the past 15 years—and the fondness of the national government for slimming its budget by reducing transfers to local authorities, so that mayors and governors have to make the actual cuts. The problems with park cleaning and rubbish collection stem from the dismantling by police and prosecutors last December of a Mafia-like organisation that had woven a thick fabric of corrupt associations with local officials.

Mr Marino has delivered on some promises. Earlier this month, he completed a clampdown on unauthorised yet seemingly untouchable snack vendors, whose gaudy mobile bars long spoiled the views of Rome’s most majestic monuments. Last week, he showed he could be ruthless, firing the management of Rome’s dysfunctional urban transport corporation. And though he comes from a different political background, the embattled mayor is making a sincere effort to sweep away the sort of cronyism against which his party leader Matteo Renzi, the prime minister, often inveighs.

That creates an awkward dilemma for Mr Renzi. Seldom one to be caught on the less popular side of a dispute, the prime minister appeared at first to side with Mr Marino’s critics. But on the night before the reshuffle, perhaps impressed the mayor’s new firmness, Mr Renzi told an interviewer that “if he manages to get concrete results and resolve [the problems] of the city, he won’t lack support from the government.” It was a laudable response on Mr Renzi's part—but a tall order for Mr Marino.