Italian Politics

Recently these posters were all over the city of Rome announcing an upcoming rally.

Last April Silvio Berlusconi (People of Freedom Party) was again elected as Italy's Prime Minister. In American elections, the defeated candidate usually disappears into the woodwork. Not so, here in Italy. Walter Veltroni, (center-left Democratic party, PD) the former mayor of Rome and the defeated candidate, can be seen on TV every day, on talk shows and in the news, continuing to campaign for the ideas of his party.
This Saturday I was attempting to go into the center of the city and encountered tens of thousands of demonstrators making their way to the Circus Maximus for a rally and to hear a message from Walter Veltroni. The first reports were that 2.5 million people were there, proclaiming that "Another Italy is Possible!" The official police count was 200,000. Either way, it was a large rally for a recently defeated party.

Demonstrators going past the medieval Porta San Paolo

Marching past the ancient Aurelian Wall