Conte's nomination as Italy PM hits snag after reports on inaccurate CV

ROME - The unexpected rise of Giuseppe Conte from low-key attorney and law professor to Italy's next prime minister hit a snag Tuesday after it was revealed the 54-year-old may have lied about or exaggerated his educational credentials.

Luigi Di Maio from the populist Five-Star Movement and the League's Matteo Salvini formally nominated Conte on Monday to head Italy's 66th government since the end of World War II. But soon after, reports that could damage his chances began circulating.

Conte's 12-page curriculum vitae states he studied at some of the world's most prestigious universities, including Yale and New York University in the United States, France's Sorbonne, and Cambridge in Britain.

But a report from Jason Horowitz in the New York Times posted late Monday quoted a press officer from New York University as saying the institution had no record of Conte studying there, though the officer did say it was possible Conte took a brief one or two-day course for which records are not kept. That is in contrast to Conte's published CV, which says he took classes at the university for at least one month for five consecutive years ending in 2012.

A spokesman for the Five-Star Movement responded to a request for comment from Xinhua, stating it stood by Conte's assertion that he "perfected and updated his studies" at the New York campus.

On Tuesday, Jeanne Perego, an Italian journalist based in Germany, reported another potential misstatement involving Conte's claim to have studied law at the International Kultur Institute in Vienna in 1993, noting that the Kultur Institute was a language school.

Other Italian media noted that Conte's reported course work at other universities may have been misstated.

Commentators said it was unclear how much damage the charges would cause.

"This kind of thing has happened in Italy before: Valeria Fedeli (the current Italian minister of education) inaccurately claimed to have graduated from university when she hadn't, and she was not forced to step down," Vincenzo Emanuele, a political scientist and a researcher with the Italian Center for Electoral Studies at Rome's LUISS University, said in an interview.

Emanuele went on: "Conte's misrepresentation is less serious than that, but being prime minister is also a more high-profile job than being minister of education," he said.

The Five-Star Movement was adamant that Conte's nomination was still valid, which means the next step for him is to meet with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who can give Conte a mandate to form a new government.

Analysts told Xinhua Mattarella already had doubts about Conte even before the reports about his studies emerged, based on the idea Italy needed a stronger or more political savvy figure as prime minister. It is not clear whether Mattarella might use the new developments to ask the parties to reconsider their nomination.

"There is no way to know whether as prime minister Conte would be his own man, or whether he would be a front for Di Maio or Salvini," Luca Verzichelli, a political scientist at the University of Siena said in an interview. "Conte is more like a figure who would head a caretaker technocrat government, but if he's supported by the Five-Star Movement or the League, it will be an elected government."