Analysis | Strings attached: Italy’s next PM may have to deal with two puppet masters

The way things are shaping up in Italy, the next prime minister will have to manage two heavyweight ministers with no power base of his own. And it’ll be his first proper job in politics.

Five Star leader Luigi Di Maio said Monday he is proposed Giuseppe Conte, a 53-year-old law professor from Florence University to lead a coalition government after a deal with his partner Matteo Salvini of the anti-immigrant League. If he eventually gets the job, Conte is going to face constant pressure from the two populists who drew up his policy programme.

A dapper figure who wears three-piece suits, with a handkerchief folded in his breast-pocket, Conte is likely to have both 31-year-old Di Maio and Salvini, 45 around the cabinet table. Di Maio is tipped as a possible minister of labour and economic development, while Salvini could be interior minister.

The new prime minister’s ability to contain those personal and political rivalries will be a concern for President Sergio Mattarella as he considers whether to formalise his nomination for premier. As one senior state official put it: if Conte is at a summit with Germany’s Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron of France, he can’t call Salvini and Di Maio for approval every time he needs to take a position.

“This is uncharted territory,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political-science professor at Rome’s Luiss University. “Will Conte be just an executor, implementing a programme decided by others? Or will he be a mediator between Five Star and the League, between the two parties and their European partners?”

Salvini confirmed on Monday that Conte was also the League’s pick for prime minister in a live video on Facebook to his more than two million followers.