Equal-time rules for Italy's state broadcaster Rai were issued on Wednesday and caused immediate uproar because of a provision giving Premier Silvio Berlusconi the last say thanks to an unprecedented campaign-ending solo press conference.
The format and ground rules for the debates were issued in the midst of a media blitz by the media mogul which had already roused an outcry from the opposition. The end-of-campaign press conference by the premier sparked further outrage.
One party called it "intolerable," another "the acme of the premier's campaign of flouting fairness rules," and another "a horror story that will hopefully spell the end of this government."
A small opposition party said it might challenge the rules in court, voicing anger not only at the premier's press conference but also at alleged discrimination against small parties and a provision excluding recent parliamentary members.
The latter rule has been seen as a way of keeping black-balled current-affairs show host and EuroMP Michele Santoro off the air. Santoro and another popular journalist have not worked for Rai since Berlusconi accused them of making "criminal use" of state TV during the 2001 election campaign.
Berlusconi will debate his electoral rival Romano Prodi twice in the run-up to Italy's April 9 general election, the parliamentary watchdog for state broadcaster Rai decided on Wednesday. The face-offs between the centre-right and centre-left candidates will take place at prime time at the start and end of the election campaign that kicks off on February 11, Rai said.
The debates will be moderated by a Rai journalist, who will make sure speakers stick to equal-time provisions. Questions can only be 30 seconds long. Two other journalists will take a direct part in the debates.
They will be picked at random from a selection put together by the two candidates. There will also be three debates between other centre-left and centre-right leaders. Each debate will last one and a quarter hours. They will be hosted by the three political talk shows Rai is currently airing.
All party chiefs will have separate meet-the-press sessions, while - in a highly unusual move - the premier will also have the privilege of staging a press conference to wind up the campaign.
This raised the possibility of the premier getting two press conferences - one as leader of his Forza Italia (FI) party and one as premier. Even Berlusconi's allies, however, said they trusted him to send someone else for the FI session.
Rai will have to feed the debates to private broadcasters - Berlusconi's three-channel behemoth Mediaset and the tiny La7 - if those TV stations request them. Italy's equal-time law has been at the centre of fierce debate since Berlusconi began a media blitz at the start of the year, aimed at reeling back the opposition's lead in opinion polls.
Italy's media observatory has calculated that the premier spoke for almost eight hours on TV and other media in two weeks in January - seven times Prodi's air time. Many politicians and commentators appear to have been unaware that the equal-time law is meant to apply at all times, while becoming particularly stringent at election time.
Members of the opposition called for the stricter equal-time rules to be applied immediately so as to rein in Berlusconi's frenzied last-minute rush to get his message across, singing the praises of his government's achievements. In the middle of Berlusconi's media push, Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi had called for the immediate fulfilment of equal-time requirements.
Berlusconi denied that the president was referring to him.
Italian political commentators did not agree with the premier.
They also claimed the premier and president had clashed over the premier's desire to postpone the agreed campaign start by two weeks in order to take advantage of the looser standards applied outside election time. Berlusconi won the extra two weeks but his impact on opinion polls has been minimal so far.
A poll issued Wednesday said the centre right had closed on the centre left by half a point but were still trailing by five points.
Berlusconi says the gap is much closer and is confident of overtaking the opposition by April 9.
