Italy’s populists face setback on their new leader

FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

Leader of the Italy’s populist Five Star Movement, Luigi Di Maio (L), shakes hands with Giuseppe Conte, who could become Italy’s next prime minister.

The two anti-establishment parties looking to share power in Italy face the prospect of having their first choice for prime minister rejected.

The leaders of the Five Star Movement (M5S) and Lega, Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini, chose a relatively unknown private law professor called Giuseppe Conte as the country’s next prime minister. They presented their nomination to Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella Monday, but he has yet to approve the choice.

According to Reuters, a source in the president’s office said that he needed time for reflection due to the important role a prime minister plays leading a government.

This delay comes amid questions over Conte’s illustrious CV, particularly his claims to have “perfected” his studies at a handful of prestigious universities, including Yale, Duquesne, the International Kultur Institut in Vienna, La Sorbonne in France, Cambridge and New York University, according to Conte’s profile page on a law association website.

Conte has been accused of inflating his academic credentials after the Sorbonne and NYU both said they had no record of Conte having studied there.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t come here. But we have not yet found his name in our records,” an official at the Sorbonne told Reuters, adding staff would keep on searching through old written records. Meanwhile, Cambridge University declined to comment to Reuters although the agency cited a source as saying Conte might have attended a course run by a third party at one of the university’s colleges.