Survey reveals that four out of five Romans would prefer another mayor

A year and a half after Ignazio Marino was elected mayor of Rome, only about a fifth of Romans have faith in him, according to the stark results of a poll commissioned by the Rome branch of Marino's party, the centre-left Partita Democratica (PD).

Some 80 per cent are dissatisfied with the mayor's performance to date while his city parliament fares even worse, with a satisfaction rate of just 16 per cent. The survey revealed that if those questioned were to return to the polls today, only 23 per cent would vote for Marino again while some 75 per cent would choose somebody else.

The poll was the result of a sample 2,000 participants and was designed to measure the level of support for the current city adminstration. When asked "what works well in Rome?" 54 per cent responded "nothing".

Asked to describe the city using three adjectives (none of which were offered by pollsters), 62 per cent said their city was "dirty", 49 per cent said "chaotic" and 35 per cent said "run down". In fifth place came "beautiful."

When asked to describe the "Rome I would like", 60 per cent of those polled said "clean", 31 per cent said "liveable, comfortable, looked after", and 29 per cent said "efficient." Residents identified the areas that needed emergency attention as "urban decorum" (61 per cent), "collection and disposal of refuse" (59 per cent), "problems relating to public transport" (53 per cent).

As for the least efficient city services, almost 80 per cent cited public transport, followed by traffic management (70 per cent), rubbish disposal (69 per cent), security (52 per cent) and the municipal police (45 per cent).

When asked to compare how things were under former mayor Gianni Alemanno, 23 per cent said life in Rome is better under Marino (four per cent said "much better, 19 per cent said "a little better"); 35 per cent said nothing had changed while 40 per cent said things were worse ("a bit worse" 15 per cent, "much worse" 25 per cent).

Marino described the survey as “an excellent document for helping us to understand certain data.”