(dpa) - Centre-right
candidate Gianni Alemanno appeared set to win Monday mayoral elections in Rome,
handing Silvio Berlusconi's conservatives another triumph following their
victory in Italy's parliamentary polls earlier this month.
Alemanno led by a substantial 53 per cent of the vote, with ballots counted at
more than half of the 2,600 polling stations in the Italian capital, officials
said.
His centre-left candidate in the run-off election, Francesco Rutelli was
trailing with around 46 per cent.
A victory by 50-year-old Alemanno would allow the centre-right to capture the
Rome mayorship from the centre-left for the first time in 15 years.
Alemanno, a youth leader of the now defunct, neo-Fascist Italian Social
Movement in the 1980s, served as an agriculture minister in Berlusconi's last
government in 2006. He ran for mayor for the designated prime minister's People
of Freedom Party.
Democratic Party candidate, Rutelli, a culture minister in outgoing Prime
Minister Romano Prodi's centre-left government, served as Rome mayor from 1993
to 2001. He was backed by a coalition including Communists and Greens in the
mayoral race.
Polls closed Monday or the second and last day of the run-off vote with some 63
per cent of the more than 2.5 million Romans eligible to vote, casting ballots.
The turnout in the first round of the elections, held on April 13- 14 together
with Italy's parliamentary polls, was 80 per cent.
In the first round Rutelli won 47 per cent of the vote, while Alemanno won
almost 41 per cent, with the remainder going to other candidates.
With no candidate managing to win a clear 50-per-cent majority, a run-off
between the top two was made necessary.
Final results were expected Monday evening.