Italy's 5-Star aims to reform as Rome fiasco threatens its future

Rome's newly elected mayor Virginia Raggi, of 5-Star Movement, gestures during a news conference in Rome, Italy June 20, 2016. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

ROME (Reuters) - Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi, one of the most prominent faces of Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, had hoped that recruiting a former magistrate would restore some order to her chaotic city government. What happened shows how the party must change if it is ever to rule the country successfully.

Raffaele De Dominicis, whom she named as finance chief, was supposed to undo the legal tangles and bureaucratic blunders that had beset the first two months of rule in Rome by 5-Star - whose electoral appeal rests on voters' weariness with rampant corruption in the political establishment.