Upstart Party’s Candidate to Be Mayor of Milan
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ROME — The candidate of Italy’s newly powerful Lega Nord party was elected mayor of Milan on Sunday, a resounding confirmation of the upstart group’s growing prominence.
The victory of Marco Formentini in Italy’s financial capital was a major step forward for the Lega Nord (Northern League). But now its performance in government will be in the national spotlight, and its claim as the only clean, efficient political force will be put to the test.
The Lega Nord came from nowhere in the late 1980s to shake up Italian politics with its campaign against bureaucracy, wasteful spending and corruption and in favor of greater independence for the wealthier north. Critics accuse it of being anti-immigrant and anti-southern.
The Milan race was one of 145 mayoral runoffs Sunday in which nearly 7 million Italians were eligible to vote.
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