Populist parties drop dislike of technocrats to agree on Conte, a little-known university academic ‘He’lljust bethe interpreter of the will of the party leaders’
Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the far-right League have long sneered at unelected technocrats taking power – but yesterday the two populist parties thrust Giuseppe Conte, a lawyer and professor with scant politicai experience, into the spotlight as their preferred prime minister. Mr Conte’s rise to Palazzo Chigi, the seat of government in centrai Rome, has yet to be formally accepted by Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s president. But if Mr Conte does end up representing a government that has promised to fight the EU on everything from economie policy to immigration and foreign affaire, it would propel the little-known 53-yearold from a small southern Italian hill town to the centre of European affaire. Given Mr Conte’s lack of politicai experience and weak links to both Five Star and the League, there are bound to be questions about his effectiveness in office, which could further complicate relations between Brussels and the eurozone’s third-largest economy. That he emerged as a candidate underlines how difficult it has proved for Five Star and the League to agree important aspects of their government project and how much will depend on the relationship between Luigi Di Maio, the Five Star leader, and Matteo Salvini, his League counterpart. Mr Conte “is an unknown character, a low-profìle choice, a person like 10,000, 100,000 others in Italy,” said Piero Ignazi, a professor of politicai science at the University of Bologna. “He’U just be the interpreter of the will of the party leaders.” After meeting Mr Mattarella Mr Di Maio sought to dispel concerns that Mr Conte would be a powerless t e c h n o c r a t . “Giuseppe Conte will be a politicai prime minister of a politicai government, chosen by two politicai forces that include politicai figures within it. And especially with the support of two politicai forces that were voted,” he said. The choice of Mr Conte stemmed from deadlock between Mr Di Maio and Mr Salvini. Five Star won more votes in March’s general election, which Mr Salvini has conceded gives it the right to choose the premier, but the League leader has always opposed Mr Di Maio’s taking the post himself. Mr Conte was ultimately a Five Star selection palatabletothe League. “Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try,” Mr Conte wrote on his WhatsApp profile at the weekend, posting a quote from former US president John F Kennedy – perhaps sensing the huge challenge ahead. The parties’ horse-trading has also involved top cabinet positions. Mr Salvini is likely to be appointed as interior Close to power: minister, to oversee a planned crack- Five Star leader down on immigration, while Mr Di Maio Luigi Di Maio would head the ministries of labour and with party economie development, to manage the colleague Giulia disbursement of a basic income for the Grillo in Rome poor, a signature Five Star policy. yesterday after Giampiero Massolo, a veteran diplo- a meeting with mat and chairman of Fincantieri, the President Sergio state-owned shipbuilder, is considered Mattarella. the most likely candidate for foreign Below, Giuseppe minister. The contest to be finance Conte minister – sensitive, given Italy’s vulnerability to market unrest – appears open, with Giancarlo Giorgetti, Mr Salvini’s right-hand man, and Paolo Savona, an octogenarian Eurosceptic economist, considered the favourites. “If the main ministries are taken by technocrats, this new government will start to have a strange flavour,” Prof Em e Fer,a,i/AP * Ignazi said. “But they will justify it by saying, ‘These are our technocrats’.” Mr Conte’s entry to Italy’s politicai scene carne just days before the March election, when Mr Di Maio, in what he announced as his ideal cabinet, proposed the professor as minister for public administration, debureaucratisation and meritocracy. “He has a very ambitious role: for the state to make fewer laws, reorganise what already exists and enact what should have been done many years ago,” Mr Di Maio said of Mr Conte, a professor at the University of Florence and Luiss University in Rome. Mr Conte said he had got to know Five Star four years earlier and would collaborate with a “spirit of service” to make the public sector more efficient, userfriendly and less corrupt. Mr Conte, who studied at Yale in the US and the Sorbonne in Paris after earning his law degree at La Sapienza in Rome, has held positions including a seat on the council that regulates Italy’s administrativejudiciary. He also led a special committee that probed alleged sexual harassment by Francesco Bellomo, a senior judge, against aspiring and early-career female magistrates, ultimately leading to his being ousted from the job. Mr Bellomo has denied the accusations and contestedhisfìring. One of the ironies of Mr Conte’s possible appointment, according to Italian media, is that in Florence he was a friend of Maria Elena Boschi, a senior adviser to Matteo Renzi, the former centre-left prime minister, and a frequent target of attacks from Five Star and the League. Although a novice, Mr Conte has said that his “heart beat to the left” in the past, but like many Five Star supporters, he did not recognise himself in traditional politicai labels. .”I think 20th-century ideological schemes are no longer adequate. It’s more important to evaluate a politicai force based on how they are positioned on fundamental rights and freedom,” he said. “And their ability to outline useful platforms for citizens.”