The new coalition government in Italy has passed its first confidence tests in both houses of the Rome parliament with unexpected ease. Giuseppe Conte, who entered politics a year ago as the caretaker prime minister of an odd couple coalition of the rightwing League and the internet radicals of the 5-Star Movement, appeared the master of his brief and of both chambers.
From being the grey lawyer from nowhere he has become “little Napoleon” grumbled Lucia Annunziata the celebrity editor-commentator of Huff Post Italy, and he and the wily President Sergio Mattarella put together another unlikely coalition – this time in only a matter of days. The lead partnership is made of the 5-Star and the Democratic Party, with the tiny Leu leftwing party joining with one seat in the new cabinet.
