AKIPRESS.COM - The anti-establishment Five Star Movement has won key mayoral races in Italy's capital Rome and Turin, cementing its role in Italian politics.

Virginia Raggi won 67% of the Rome vote and becomes its first female mayor, BBC reports. 

Her victory is a blow to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which won in Milan and Bologna.

The results could give anti-globalisation Five Star a platform for parliamentary elections due in 2018.

Five Star is aiming to establish itself as the main opposition party ahead of the vote, and its success on Sunday extended well beyond Rome. It won in 19 out of 20 towns and cities in which its candidates stood for mayor.

Another female Five Star candidate, Chiara Appendino, won the race for mayor in Turin, defeating a Democratic Party candidate who had come out on top in the first round of voting two weeks ago.

"It was not a vote of protest, but of pride and change, " she told supporters, promising to rebuilt trust between the people of Turin and its elected representatives.