'Dinnergate' leaves Rome mayor to pay bill for city's sorry state

Rome's mayor appeared on the brink of being forced from office Thursday over an expenses row after months of attacks by opponents determined to make him a scapegoat for the sorry state of the Italian capital. Ignazio Marino has been under intense pressure for months against a backdrop of mounting public anger over the litter-strewn and pot-holed state of the city's ancient streets, a failing public transport system and organised crime's infiltration of the municipal authority. They are all problems which predate Marino's arrival in office. But nevertheless his position at the helm of the Eternal City looked untenable as backing from his own party wilted away with two key allies announcing their own resignations. Their moves came after Marino agreed to pay back 20,000 euros ($22,600) of restaurant bills settled with a city hall credit card over the course of his two years and four months in office. In a statement on his Facebook page, the mayor said all the money had been spent legitimately on official entertainment but that he would cover the cost as a personal gift to Italy's financially-strapped capital. "With this gesture I want to draw a line under the pointless and surreal polemics of recent days, which do Rome no good," the centre-left mayor wrote. That appeared a forlorn hope. After newspapers published evidence suggesting that at least a handful of the paid-for dinners had been attended only by Marino and his wife, a media scrum set up camp outside the city hall in Michelangelo's Piazza del Campidoglio, confidently anticipating a political kill by nightfall. Opposition attempts to present a no-confidence motion were frustrated by procedural rules but reports soon emerged of Marino being given an ultimatum to quit by his own Democratic Party. Deputy Mayor Marco Causi and top transport official Stefano Esposito opted to jump first with the latter saying: "This situation can only lead to the end of this administration." - Suspected smear campaign - Marino's administration has been buffeted by a seemingly never-ending string of damaging stories since he was elected in 2013 for a five-year term. These range from the revelation that he drove his Fiat Panda in traffic-restricted areas of the city with an expired permit to stories that regularly suggest Prime Minister Matteo Renzi regards his Democratic Party colleague as a liability. Marino copped the blame when a notorious mafia figure who styled himself the 'King of Rome' was given a glitzy funeral on the outskirts of the city in August, while the mayor was on holiday in the United States. And he is routinely lambasted over the capital's crumbling infrastructure and cutbacks to bus and tram services, protesting in vain that he inherited a city in a mess and on the brink of bankruptcy. Even Pope Francis joined the attacks after Marino flew to the United States to join the last leg of his recent tour, pointedly revealing that the mayor had not received any invitation from the Vatican and dismissing the elected official as "someone who purports to be Catholic." Francis has understandable objections to the mayor's support for gay marriage and euthanasia. But quite why the keen cyclist and former liver transplant surgeon is subject to such ire from across the political spectrum and the media remains something of a mystery. His supporters suspect a concerted smear campaign linked to Marino's role in exposing a criminal network with links to the far right which had infiltrated itself into the municipal authority under his predecessor. Police dismantled the "Mafia Capitale" network last year and dozens of local politicians and businessmen suspected of rigging tenders and siphoning off millions of euros destined for public services are due to go on trial next month. But the mayor's critics say he is simply not up to the job and some have pointed out that "Dinnergate" is not the first expenses scandal to engulf him. In 2002, Marino resigned as director of a transplant centre in Sicily after being accused of submitting the same expenses claim to both the centre and its US partner, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.