Tag: Legal education

Conte will be the figurehead of the uneasy coalition between the country's populist parties, the Five Star Movement and the Lega Nord. Italy is set to name Giuseppe Conte, a relatively unknown law professor with hardly any political experience, as its next prime minister, according to Italian media reports. The appointment could be presented to Italy's president, Sergio Mattarella, as early as Monday. Italy's political system is unusual in that often, particularly during times of coalition government, its prime minister is not the leader of a political party but an appointed technocrat, generally put in place as a compromise between coalition partners. Conte's likely appointment fits that mold, with neither Five Star nor the Lega keen to have a leader appointed from the ranks of its partner's party. Conte — who lectures in public-administration law at the University of Florence and the University of Bologna — is by no stretch a politician. In a profile in Corriere Della Sera, one of the country's most prominent newspapers, it is said that while he has a "very long curriculum vitae," he also does not "have a clue about politics." An uneasy alliance Though neither Luigi Di Maio, Five Star's leader, nor Matteo Salvini, the head of the Lega Nord, has announced the name of his prime ministerial choice, Salvini said on Sunday that a candidate had been chosen. "It won't be me, nor Di Maio," he added. Five Star and Lega Nord are by no means natural bedfellows, but they have settled on a series of compromises that will allow them to govern after Five Star — which is the biggest single party — ruled out working with any of Italy's more established political parties.