After two months of post-election negotiations, a coalition agreement – if not a decision on a prime minister – seems imminent

When Italians went to the polls in early March, the message was loud and clear: it was time for the parties that had dominated politics since the early 1990s to vacate the stage.

Over 50% of voters backed two outsider parties, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the far-right League. Over two months later, the pair are on the verge of forming a coalition government that could break decisively with the centrist policies that went before.

Matteo Salvini, leader of the League (formerly the Northern League), and his M5S counterpart, Luigi di Maio, have been thrashing out a deal that could be revealed as soon as Sunday.

“The Italian people want this government,” said Mattia Diletti, a professor at Sapienza University in Rome. “They want to see something new, and I think Sergio Mattarella [Italy’s president] understands this.”

Salvini and Di Maio, an odd couple who have spent most of the past two months hurling insults at each other, are working to put together a policy document and are expected to update Mattarella on Sunday.

Di Maio has said that “considerable steps forward” have been made on a policy programme, with agreement on issues such as tougher laws on immigration, reform of pensions, a flat tax and a universal basic income.

But it is unclear who Italy’s next prime minister will be. The names mooted in the Italian press include the League’s deputy leader, Giancarlo Giorgetti; Giampiero Massolo, chairman of shipbuilder Fincantieri and ex-chief of the secret service, and Elisabetta Belloni, the foreign ministry’s secretary general.

In any event, the candidate is likely to be someone who will heed Mattarella’s thinly disguised warning to the coalition on Thursday against retreating from Europe. M5S has softened its stance on the EU, saying it would like to open discussions on “some treaties” rather than pull Italy out, while Salvini has said he wants to “defend Italy” within the bloc.

“If they don’t come up with a PM then Mattarella will help,” said Diletti. “It’s a very tough situation: for the first time we have a very new political coalition, and the first [of its kind] in western Europe. But Mattarella is very able at managing the situation and is trying to assure Europe that the system is working.”

If the talks fail, both Salvini and Di Maio have said they want new snap elections. In a further turn of events on Saturday, that could mean Italy’s four-time ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi getting another chance at re-entering government. Italian newspapers reported that the 81-year-old had his ban on seeking office lifted by a Milan court on Friday, meaning he can run for one of the two houses of parliament. The ban was imposed after tax-fraud conviction in 2013.