Giuseppe Conte, the proposed new prime minister of Italy | EPA Little-known law professor put forward as Italian prime minister Italian President Sergio Mattarella has the power to reject the coalition partners’ proposal.

The two populist parties who have agreed a program for a new Italian government have proposed a law professor, Giuseppe Conte, as prime minister.

“Conte will be the prime minister of a political government,” the leader of the 5Stars Luigi Di Maio told reporters after meeting Italy's president to present the nomination. The leader of the League, Matteo Salvini, confirmed the name shortly afterward after his own meeting with the president.

Conte has worked as a lawyer as well as an academic, and his résumé includes brief spells at the universities of Yale, New York and Cambridge. He had been proposed as a possible minister by the 5Stars ahead of the March election.

Two and a half months after the inconclusive vote on March 4, the two rival parties are finally edging closer to what they call a “government of the change,” which plans billions of euros in tax cuts, additional welfare spending, and a costly rollback of a 2011 pension reform.

Bond markets have reacted nervously to the prospect of the populist coalition. The difference in the cost of borrowing between Italy and Germany on Monday peaked at over 180 points as the leader of the European People's Party in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, speaking to German media, said that “irrational or populist actions” by the new Italian government “could provoke a new euro crisis.”

After his meeting with the president though, Salvini attempted to reassure observers at home and abroad. “Nobody has anything to be afraid of,” he told reporters.

Conte himself is little known outside Rome’s political circles, although he has next to no frontline political experience. He has a technocratic profile that critics say contradicts the campaigning message of the two populist parties in the prospective coalition who both made gains at the expense of the technocratic government of Mario Monti in 2011 because it was “unelected.”

Corriere della Sera, Italy’s leading daily, in a profile of Conte on Monday wrote that “he’s described as moderate and well-balanced." Il Sole 24 Ore reported that on his WhatsApp profile until a few days ago, he quoted the words of the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy: “Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.”

Both party leaders met Italian President Sergio Mattarella to present their prime ministerial nomination. He has the power to reject Conte's nomination, but if he approves, he will summon him to confer on Conte the mandate to form a Cabinet.

Mattarella has called in the presidents of the two chambers — Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati and Roberto Fico — for a meeting late Tuesday morning to "hear their views," an official close to Mattarella said. The official also said the president is taking a pause for reflection, hinting that the president may wait until Wednesday before announcing his decision on the premier candidate.

During his meetings with the two party leaders, Mattarella reminded them that, under the Italian constitution, the key role of the prime minister is to coordinate the ministers' actions and shape the government's policies, stressing that the premier cannot be a mere executor.

Mattarella also highlighted "worries about the alarming signs related to Italy's public finances and Italians' savings," the official said, in a reference to investors' concerns that have hit Italian bonds, sending Italy's borrowing costs higher.

If Conte's nomination goes forward, the new government would face a confidence vote in both chambers of parliament, possibly later this week.