Members of Italy's populist Five-Star Movement on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to support a proposed coalition with the center-left Democratic Party (PD) – its long-term political rival, opening the way for a new government to take office in the coming days.

In an online vote on Tuesday using the party's Rousseau voting platform, 79.3 percent of Five-Star supporters voted in favor of joining forces with the PD, while 20.7 percent opposed the alliance.

The vote was necessitated after negotiations between Conte, Five-Star Movement head Luigi Di Maio, and Nicola Zingaretti, head of the Democratic Party, stalled in negotiations over details about what would be included in the joint platform of the new government.

With the vote, Conte can now complete work on the new administration and present President Sergio Mattarella with a list of suggested ministers. 

"I am very proud of today's vote and very proud of the government that is to come," Di Maio told reporters after the roughly 80,000 ballots were counted, easily beating party's previous record for its frequent online ballots.

"This government will be neither on the left or on the right," he added. "It will be a government that does the things that need doing."

The PD's decision to go into coalition with Five-Star did not require a vote by its rank and file.

Once Mattarella has agreed to Conte's cabinet, the prime minister will have to win confidence votes in both houses of parliament before the government can officially start work.

As Five-Star's online ballot got under way early in the day, Five-Star and PD unveiled a shared, 26-point policy program for their mooted coalition, putting an expansionary 2020 budget at the top of their agenda.

Five-Star, created a decade ago out of opposition to the PD, agreed to form a new administration with its former rival to head off a snap election after its coalition with the League collapsed last month.

Budget flexibility 

Italian benchmark 10-year bond yields hit record lows on Tuesday in a sign that investors believed the new administration would take office, heading off the risk of an early election and prolonged political instability.

"The results (of the Five-Star ballot) are quite strong," said Chris Scicluna, head of economic research at Daiwa Capital Markets in London to Reuters. "This is the kind of result that is going to give investors confidence in the new coalition, at least for the next few months, and in its ability to deliver a budget that is likely to be challenging."

The Five-Star and PD said they would use the coming budget to help the stalled economy grow, but also promised that they would not endanger public finances.

Italy has the second-largest debt burden in the European Union as a proportion of economic output, and the coalition pact called for greater flexibility from Brussels to overcome the "excessive rigidity" of existing budget rules.

Emphasizing social justice, the two parties pledged to introduce a minimum salary, avoid a VAT hike set for January and boost spending on education, research and welfare. The program also called for a web tax on multinationals and the creation of a public bank to help boost development in the poorer south.

Five-Star and PD committed to rewriting Italy's conflict of interest laws, a move that former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi always sought to head off, fearing it could impact negatively on his Mediaset media empire. 

The two parties also promised a "revision" of Italy's motorway concessions. The vague wording left open the hope for Italy's Atlantia that Five-Star would not press ahead with its demand that it lose its lucrative toll road concession in the wake of last year's deadly bridge collapse in Genoa.

(Cover: Five-Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio speaks to the media after consultations with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in Rome, Italy, August, 28, 2019. /Reuters Photo)

(With input from Xinhua, Reuters)