Under Italy's constitution, the president serves as an arbiter above the political fray, and he is in charge of choosing government ministers in consultation with the prime minister-designate. Past presidents have vetoed multiple names for top cabinet posts, and each time the leading coalition submitted a different, more acceptable, candidate and went on its merry way to form a government. [...]
The firebrand populist demanded that the president immediately dissolve parliament and call new elections, "otherwise, we'll see you all in Rome," a not-too-veiled reference to the 1922 March on Rome that brought Benito Mussolini to power. [...]
The deal was based on an improbable mix of ultra-liberalist policies – such as introducing a flat tax rate – and socially-minded moves such as reducing the retirement age and granting citizen stipends. How the coalition could have fulfilled such costly, crowd-pleasing promises without further inflating Italy's enormous public debt (now at 132 percent of GDP) remains a mystery.
But that is beside the point, because this unprecedented yellow-green alliance (named after the colors of the 5 Stars and League) was not really planning to govern. There are still vast differences and strong rivalries between the nationalist, xenophobic League and the social-media-addicted conspiracy theorists of the 5 Stars, and their pact, backed by a slim parliamentary majority, was unlikely to last long.
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