Matteo Renzi to lead Italy’s Democratic Party
11 Dec 2013 5:17 AM IST
The 38-year-old Renzi, who just a year ago was a virtual unknown in Italian politics, trounced rivals Gianni Cuperlo, a party apparatchik, and Giuseppe ‘Pippo’ Civati with around 68 percent of the vote.
He was given an ovation from supporters in Florence, where he welcomed the strong turn-out of around 2.5 million voters, saying Italians ‘have shown that they are worth more than their leadership class’.
The election of Renzi, who has said he takes inspiration from Tony Blair and Barack Obama, marks a transformation for the Democratic Party given his youth and the fact that he did not rise through the ranks of what was once Europe’s largest communist party.
Despite being a product of the more moderate Christian Democrats Renzi, who has vowed to overhaul the party, insisted that his election was ‘not the end of the left’. ‘We are changing the players but we are not going over to the other side of the pitch,’ he said.
The youthful Renzi has also long campaigned against the middle-aged leadership of his own party and pushed for a more centrist programme.
He was given an ovation from supporters in Florence, where he welcomed the strong turn-out of around 2.5 million voters, saying Italians ‘have shown that they are worth more than their leadership class’.
The election of Renzi, who has said he takes inspiration from Tony Blair and Barack Obama, marks a transformation for the Democratic Party given his youth and the fact that he did not rise through the ranks of what was once Europe’s largest communist party.
Despite being a product of the more moderate Christian Democrats Renzi, who has vowed to overhaul the party, insisted that his election was ‘not the end of the left’. ‘We are changing the players but we are not going over to the other side of the pitch,’ he said.
The youthful Renzi has also long campaigned against the middle-aged leadership of his own party and pushed for a more centrist programme.
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