2008 Rome municipal election

2008 Rome municipal election

← 2006 13–14 April 2008 (first round) 27–28 April 2008 (second round) 2013 →
Turnout	73.7% 7.7 pp (first round) 63.1% 10.6 pp (second round)
Mayoral election
Candidate Gianni Alemanno Francesco Rutelli Party PdL PD Alliance Centre-right Centre-left 1st Round vote 675,111 759,252 Percentage 40.7% 45.8% 2nd Round vote 783,725 676,850 Percentage 53.7% 46.3%
Mayor before election Mario Morcone (Special commissioner) Elected mayor Gianni Alemanno PdL
City Council election
All 60 seats in City Council 31 seats needed for a majority
Party Leader Vote % Seats +/– Centre-right Gianni Alemanno 39.62 36 +14 Centre-left Francesco Rutelli 46.70 22 −16 Tricolour Flame Francesco Storace 3.37 1 Union of the Centre Luciano Ciocchetti 3.31 1 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.

Snap municipal elections were held in Rome on 13–14 and 27–28 April 2008 to elect the Mayor of Rome and 60 members of the City Council, as well as the nineteen presidents and more than 400 councillors of the 19 municipi in which the municipality was divided. The first round of the elections occurred on the same dates of the national general election.

The elections were called just two years after the previous ones since the incumbent mayor Walter Veltroni (PD) resigned on 13 February 2008 to run as the main candidate of the centre-left coalition in the general election.

The centre-right coalition candidate Gianni Alemanno, who was defeated by Veltroni in 2006, faced the incumbent Minister of Culture and Deputy Prime Minister Francesco Rutelli, who had previously hold the position of Mayor of Rome from 1993 to 2001.

Since none of the candidates obtained the majority of votes on the first round, a second round vote was held on 27–28 April 2008. As a result, Gianni Alemanno unexpectedly won nearly 54% of votes on the second round, becoming the first centre-right directly elected mayor of Rome.