How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese? Charles de Gaulle once asked of his unruly nation.

Italy has 487 types of cheese.

The triumph of the far-right League and anti-establishment 5Star Movement in its general election Sunday represents a turning point for the eurozone's third largest economy — the first time that the government of any of the EU's founding countries will be led (most likely) by a populist party.

Coalition talks will take weeks and possibly months because of the complex electoral maths in which no party is close to an overall majority. The political system will also need time to absorb the shock of a result that has blown apart the old certainties of the center-right/center-left division at the heart of Italian politics.

Here are five possible scenarios for what happens next, starting with the most likely option:

1) Right-center

The leader of the League, Matteo Salvini, said Monday that his center-right coalition with former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia had won Sunday’s election and should form the next government. He ruled out what he called “weird alliances” with other political forces. Preliminary results suggest that the two parties will need to team up with others to form a governing coalition, but it is not impossible they will scrape together enough seats.

Projections suggest that they will end up with between 247 and 257 seats in the lower chamber (where the majority threshold is 316) and 128 to 140 seats in the Senate (where the threshold is 158). In this case, the prime minister would come from the League — likely Salvini himself — as set out in the parties' pre-election pact. A government led by such an anti-European figure will make a difficult partner for Brussels but it would be much better than the alternative...

2) 5Stars-League

This would be the government of the real winners, the League in the North and 5Star Movement in the South. In the final days of the campaign, Democratic Party leader Matteo Renzi tried to use the fear of such a result to push voters towards him but the argument clearly backfired. In the lower chamber the 5Stars are projected to win 230 to 240 seats and the Northern League 115-123, meaning that together they would have the numbers to govern.

But Salvini once again ruled out such an alliance with the anti-establishment movement, which could put in danger the pact the League has in with the center right in key Northern regions (Lombardy, Veneto and Liguria) and in many local authorities. At the same time, if Salvini teamed up with the 5Stars, he would be the junior partner rather than the head of the government. Then there's the problem of the financial markets, for whom an alliance of these two anti-establishment forces is "the worst-case scenario,” according to a research note by Swiss bank UBS.

3) 5Stars and the Left

The center-left Democratic Party is expected to have between 104 and 110 seats in the lower chamber and the center-left as a whole would have 47 to 55 in the Senate meaning that it could potentially form a coalition with the 5Star Movement. During the campaign, the leader of the Democratic Party, former prime minister Renzi, often ruled out any alliance with the 5 Stars. His reported resignation on Monday, however, would give the center left some room to maneuver.

The leader of the 5Stars, 31-years-old Luigi di Maio, seems to have bet on this scenario. When he presented his team of possible ministers last week, some of the names had clear left-wing appeal — for example, the candidate for the position of Treasury minister, Andrea Roventini, is a keynesian economist, while Salvatore Giuliano, the movement's pick for education minister, contributed to Renzi's reform of the school system.

4) Short-term government

If there is a stalemate, Italian President Sergio Mattarella has the option of appointing a short-term government, whose limited scope for action would mainly entail approving the budget for this year and changing the electoral law to avoid another hung parliament. Vetoes among parties could force such a scenario.

5) Grand coalition

As Italians headed to the polls Sunday, Germany's Social Democrats were busy approving a new 'grand coalition' with Angela Merkel's conservatives — a result that had looked well nigh impossible immediately after September's German election.

For months a similar scenario has been mooted in Italy, although everybody from Renzi to Berlusconi has denied any intention of forming an inciucio — a Neapolitan term used by the Italian media to describe a backroom deal between opposing sides. However, even if they wanted to make such an arrangement, the center right and center left simply don't have the numbers in parliament.