Italy's President To Hold Consultations After Populists Name Pick For PM

Italy's president will Tuesday hold consultations after anti-establishment and far-right party leaders proposed little-known lawyer Giuseppe Conte as prime minister of a nascent populist coalition government

Rome, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd May, 2018 ) :Italy's president will Tuesday hold consultations after anti-establishment and far-right party leaders proposed little-known lawyer Giuseppe Conte as prime minister of a nascent populist coalition government.

President Sergio Mattarella will receive the speaker of the lower house Roberto Fico and the head of the upper house, the Senate, Elisabetta Alberti Casellati at 11:00 am (0900 GMT). Conte, 54, was proposed to 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.