"We never could have elected a conservative mayor of New York."

As for Mr. Lonegan, the outspokenly conservative mayor seems to be taking his star turn in stride.

The water supply of Paris was privatized in 1984 when a conservative mayor awarded two lease contracts, each covering one half of the city.

This merged organisation was successful in winning back the council, simultaneously with the election of the independent socially conservative centre-right mayor John Banks.

The days of conservative Republican mayors - his own choice, he acknowledged, if he had had his druthers - were pretty much gone.

He led troops in a Pacific coast skirmish which killed a conservative mayor and garnered him arms from the Liberals.

(Even under the more conservative mayor, the village trustees passed a resolution against the Iraq war.)

Three of the country's largest cities, including Athens, recently elected conservative mayors.

"We have seen it as a new task for democracy," said Miltiades Evert, the conservative mayor of Athens.