The leaders of Italy’s anti-establishment and far-right parties on Monday proposed little-known lawyer Giuseppe Conte as prime minister of a nascent populist coalition government.
Conte, 54, was proposed to Italian President Sergio Mattarella during talks held at the head of state’s offices with Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio and nationalist League chief Matteo Salvini.
“We have indicated the name of Giuseppe Conte to the President of the Republic,” Luigi Di Maio wrote on the official blog of Five Star (M5S), after meeting the president in Rome on Monday evening.
“I’m very proud of this name because he is the Five Star Movement in a nutshell — he won’t burden the Italian public.”
Salvini later confirmed that Conte was also the League’s pick for prime minister in a live video on Facebook to his more than two million followers.
“Conte is an expert in simplification, cutting of red tape and streamlining of the administrative machine, which is what many businesses ask of us,” Salvini said.
A specialist in administrative law, Conte was presented before March’s inconclusive general election as Di Maio’s ministerial pick to streamline Italy’s notorious bureaucracy.
