Former agriculture minister Giovanni Alemanno was voted in as Rome mayor on Monday, taking the Italian capital to the Right for the first time since the fall of Fascism.
Alemanno beat his centre-left rival Francesco Rutelli - Italy's outgoing culture minister and two-time former Rome mayor - by 53.7% to 46.3%.
''We've performed a real political miracle... I will be a mayor for all Romans. My thoughts are also with those who did not vote for me, a decision which I respect. I guarantee that I will be their mayor too,'' Alemanno told reporters in triumphant tones.
Rutelli, meanwhile, said he felt ''great sorrow'' at his defeat.
The run-off ballot followed a first round of voting two weeks ago won by Rutelli.
Rutelli, who was Rome mayor from 1993 to 2001, gained 45.8% to Alemanno's 40.7% but failed to break the 50%-plus-one threshold which would have given him an outright victory.
Turnout in the run-off vote, which began on Sunday and ended at 15:00 on Monday, was down sharply at 62.5% from 76% in the first round.
Alemanno is an ally of centre-right chief Silvio Berlusconi, who swept back to power in Italy's April 13-14 general election.
A former neofascist, Alemanno is a member of the right-wing National Alliance (AN) which recently merged with Berlusconi's Forza Italia party to form the new People of Freedom party (PDL).
His win was another blow for Italy's centre left, which is still reeling from its election losses and had viewed Rome as a safe stronghold.
The city has been administered continuously by the centre or the centre left since the end of the war.
After Rutelli stepped down as mayor in 2001 to wage an unsuccessful bid for the premiership against Berlusconi, former Communist Walter Veltroni was voted in.
Rutelli had expected to profit from the popularity of Veltroni, who was re-elected to a second term in 2006 when he beat Alemanno with more than 60% of the vote.
Veltroni said on Monday that Rutelli's defeat was ''very serious''.
''I cannot but feel it very keenly both personally and politically,'' said Veltroni, who gave up the job of mayor to unsuccessfully take on Berlusconi in the general election.
While Veltroni was a popular, dynamic mayor credited with doing much for the capital's cultural life, critics say he did little to tackle the city's chronic traffic and housing problems.
Crime and immigration also shot to the top of the campaign agenda following a brutal sex attack at a railway station on the outskirts of Rome.
The victim was a 31-year-old woman from Lesotho who was knifed and raped.
A 37-year-old Romanian who was living in an illegal Roma encampment near the station has been arrested in connection with the crime.
Parallels were immediately drawn with a savage murder at the end of October which horrified the nation and led to the expulsion of dozens of Romanians considered a threat to public order.
In that case, a 47-year-old Italian woman was beaten, raped, robbed and then left to die by a 24-year-old Romanian gypsy in an early evening attack outside another Rome railway station very near to the one in the latest incident.
Alemanno has attacked the outgoing centre-left administration, accusing it of not doing enough for law and order amid rising crime rates.
He has promised to improve safety by putting more police on the streets, cracking down on illegal immigrants and illegal Roma settlements and improving conditions at outlying train stations.
But the 50-year-old politician, who was born in the southern city of Bari, has come under fire for his neofascist political roots.
He is married to Isabella Rauti - the daughter of far-right diehard Pino Rauti - and wears a Celtic cross around his neck, a symbol of the far right in Italy. Alemanno insists that he wears the encircled cross as a religious symbol.
PROFILE OF GIOVANNI ALEMANNO.
Alemanno was born on March 3, 1958 in Bari (Puglia) and has a degree in environmental engineering.
He was agriculture minister in the previous government headed by Silvio Berlusconi (2001-2006).
Alemanno entered politics with the youth section of the neofascist Italian Social Movement (MSI). His first official post was regional secretary for the Fronte della Gioventu' (Youth Front) and he later became its national secretary.
In the 1980s, he twice ran unsuccessfully in Rome council elections.
In 1990 he finally won a post in the Lazio regional government with MSI and four years later was elected to parliament with the National Alliance (AN), the more moderate heir to the dissolved MSI.
Alemanno was re-elected to the House in 1996, 2001 and 2006.
In 2006, Alemanno ran for Rome mayor but was beaten by Walter Veltroni.
During his stint as agriculture minister, Alemanno won plaudits for his anti-GMO (genetically modified organisms) stance, his efforts to boost the export of Italian quality foods and his defence of authentic national products against foreign counterfeits.
He has also won praise, even on the centre left, for his low-key, moderate style.
He is married to Isabella Rauti, the daughter of far-right diehard Pino Rauti.
