Rome’s mayor in peril over metro fiasco

VIRGINIA RAGGI, the embattled mayor of Rome, is facing calls to resign after escalator faults shut down three metro stations in the Italian capital.

Shopkeepers and tourists reacted with fury when the Spagna station in the city’s shopping precinct was closed for urgent checks on Saturday.

The Barberini station was closed last week and the Repubblica has been shut since October, when an escalator accelerated, injuring several people.

“We believe this situation is no longer acceptable,” said Valter Giammaria, the Rome president of business organisation Confesercenti. “Our businesses have been suffering since last year without the city’s administration making any specific commitments.

“Justifications about the obsolescence of infrastructure are worthless.”

Ms Raggi, from the populist Five Star Party, has been criticised for failing to manage rubbish collections, parks and gardens, and fix worsening potholes since her election in 2016. Several city buses have also gone up in flames.

Andrea Casu, Rome secretary of the centre-left Democratic Party, accused the mayor of “demonstrable ineptitude” and demanded she resign before the metro was completely shut down.

Ms Raggi is also engulfed in a widening corruption scandal that could threaten her political survival.

Marcello De Vito, her former council assembly chief, has been arrested in a corruption probe and Daniele Frongia, her former right-hand man, is under investigation in a corruption case.

Last November, Ms Raggi was cleared of cronyism and abuse of power after a judge ruled the alleged offence _– involving the appointment of a close aide’s brother as Rome’s tourism chief – did not constitute a crime.