Italian Foreign Affairs chief Paolo Gentiloni tasked with forming new government

Italian President Sergio Mattarella chose the country´s foreign affairs chief to lead the next government, whose main task would be to complete the reform of the country´s electoral system.

Paolo Gentiloni, who joined parliament in 2001 and became foreign affairs minister in 2014, was described by some observers as adhering very closely to the country´s typical preference for non-partisan figures, especially during times of stress.

Gentiloni, who was considered to be a close ally of ex-PM Matteo Renzi, was thought likely to be able to form a working government over the next few days.

He was expected to renew many of Renzi´s key cabinet appointments and to face a confidence vote in parliament no later than the following Wednesday.

His first task would be to revamp his predecessor's reform of the electoral system of the lower house of parliament.

In 2015 Renzi pushed through a law, the Italicum, which automatically assigns a substantial majority of seats in that chamber to whichever party obtains the most votes.

It was meant to try and create sufficiently broad and stable governments such that critical reforms could be approved more easily, or so it was thought at the time.

Yet the failure to amend in parallel the rules governing how seats are assigned in the Senate meant the current system might be unworkable.

Furthermore, a real risk was now thought to exist that the populist Five Star Movement would be the greatest beneficiary of the new arrangement.

Hence the need to reform the electoral system before the next general elections scheduled for early 2018, although many observers believed they might be called earlier, possibly as soon as the second quarter of 2017, according to analysts at Barclays Research.

Not unexpectedly, over the previous weekend the Five Star Movement had called for immediate elections.

A 4 December referendum on Constitutional reform included proposals to change how members of the Senate are chosen but ran into the opposition even of well-respected establishment figures such as ex-PM Mario Monti.

Recent events also meant Gentiloni might be tasked with managing the bail-in of at least one of the country´s largest lenders, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, if its capital raising excercise failed.

On a related note, the selection of Gentiloni was also seen as allowing for the continuity of Pier Carlo Padoan as finance minister.