[1] On 4 March, the centre-right coalition, in which Matteo Salvini's League emerged as the main political force, won a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate, while the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) led by Luigi Di Maio became the party with the largest number of votes.

In accordance with common practice in Italy, Mattarella asked the prime minister to remain in office to deal with the current affairs until a new cabinet would have been formed.

[3][4] On 31 May 2018, following 88 days of negotiations and several impasses, law professor Giuseppe Conte was appointed as the prime minister with support from the LN and the M5S, even though he hadn't run for the Italian Parliament.

Matteo Salvini (Lega) and Luigi Di Maio (M5S) were also appointed as vice premiers,[5] forming the 66th Italian government since World War II.

[24] On 14 March, Salvini nonetheless offered to govern with the M5S, imposing the condition that League ally Forza Italia, led by ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, must also take part in any coalition.

[25][26] Moreover, a Five Star prominent figure, Alessandro Di Battista, denied any possibility of an alliance with Forza Italia, describing Berlusconi as the "pure evil of our country".

[29] On 18 April 2018 Mattarella gave the President of the Senate, Elisabetta Casellati, the task to try and reconcile the issues between the Centre-right and the Five Star Movement, in order to break the post-election political deadlock and form a fully functional new government.

[32] [33] On 23 April 2018, after the failure of Casellati, Mattarella gave an exploratory mandate to the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Roberto Fico, to try to create a political agreement between the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party.

[43] On 7 May, President Mattarella held a third round of government formation talks, after which he formally confirmed the lack of any possible majority (M5S rejecting an alliance with the whole centre-right coalition, PD rejecting an alliance with both M5S and the centre-right coalition, and the League's Matteo Salvini refusing to start a government with M5S but without Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, whose presence in the government was explicitly vetoed by M5S's leader Luigi Di Maio); on the same circumstance, he announced his intention to soon appoint a "neutral government" (irrespective of M5S and League's refusal to support such an option) to take over from the Gentiloni Cabinet which was considered unable to lead Italy into a second consecutive election as it was representing a majority from a past legislature, and offering an early election in July (on what it would be the very first time for a summer general election in Italy) as a realistic option to take into consideration due to the deadlock situation.

[45][46][47] On 9 May, after a day of rumours, both M5S and the League officially requested President Mattarella to give them 24 more hours to strike a government agreement between the two parties.

[59][60] On 23 May, Conte was invited to the Quirinal Palace to receive the task of forming a new cabinet and was granted a mandate by Italian President Mattarella.

[69] The appointing of Cottarelli sparked furious reaction from the leadership of the Five Star Movement, who accused Mattarella of committing a coup d'état against the will of the Italian people.

Di Maio also formally announced his willingness to drop Paolo Savona from the previously proposed office of Minister of Economy in order to move him to a different and less sensitive government post; consequently, President Mattarella and Cottarelli jointly agreed on giving M5S and the League more time to develop a new political agreement featuring a Minister for Economy approved by the President of the Republic.