ITALIAN Five Star Movement chief Luigi Di Maio praised far-right League leader Matteo Salvini today after they cobbled together a deal to split important parliamentary posts.

Mr Di Maio told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that Mr Salvini “has proved he keeps his word” and said he wouldn’t rule out coalition talks with parliament’s right-wing bloc, of which the League is the largest party.

The rightwingers also include convicted fraudster Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. It is the second-largest of the group and provided the candidate for president of the Senate, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, the first woman to hold that position.

But Communist paper Il Manifesto saw through her feminist posturing in her acceptance speech, noting she had been a loyal servant to misogynist Mr Berlusconi for 25 years.

Meanwhile Five Star MP Roberto Fico was voted in as president of the Chamber of Deputies. Both roles are more powerful than the speaker positions in Britain’s parliament.

Neither Five Star nor the right-wing bloc has enough seats to form a government alone.

Mr Salvini has previously rejected constructing a “weird coalition” with Five Star, though the latter has proven itself ideologically flexible and so may bend enough to make a deal palatable.

Five Star’s mishmash of policies include opposition to refugees and the introduction of a universal basic income in a bid to increase consumption.

Mr Salvini’s League is more straightforwardly right-wing, and he has pledged to deport 500,000 foreigners if made PM.

In its editorial today, Il Manifesto said that such a deal would likely be unacceptable for the parties’ supporters, while a Five Star coalition with what remains of the much-reduced Democratic Party would cause the latter to crumble further.