Prodi boosts election chances with TV debate win

ROME, Mar 15 (Reuters) Italian opposition leader Romano Prodi's bid to win an April general election got a boost from his strong showing in a head-to-head television debate with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Four snap opinion polls said Prodi bettered Berlusconi in yesterday's confrontation, defying political pundits who had predicted that the media-savvy prime minister would outgun his sometimes dour opponent.

Berlusconi, whose coalition is trailing in opinion polls, admitted at the end of the 1-1/2 hour confrontation that he had failed to get his message across, while a smiling Prodi said he was ''very happy'' with the outcome.

Although the former European Commission president did not land any knockout blows, the fact that he appeared more composed and upbeat than the often defensive Berlusconi was heralded as a triumph by his centre-left allies.

Berlusconi's centre-right partners were largely silent, no doubt hoping their man improves his performance in a second encounter scheduled for the week before the April 9-10 vote.

Nearly 17 million Italians tuned into the debate, roughly a third of all voters, and were treated to a sometimes turgid, occasionally heated and always highly regulated encounter.

Berlusconi, who constantly fiddled with his pen, clearly felt uncomfortable with the strict structure of the debate and regularly overran the time limit for his answers.

''It seems to me we have not succeeded, at least as far as I am concerned, in giving Italians what they wanted to know,'' he said in his closing comments, a rare admission of failure for a man famed for his sunny optimism and hard-hitting rhetoric.

But a satisfied Prodi dismissed suggestions the clash was dull.

''We are not ballet dancers. We were talking about the problems of the country,'' he said today.

POINTS VICTORY Almost all Italian newspapers said Prodi had won a points victory by focusing more on his future plans than Berlusconi, who constantly referred back to the problems his government inherited when it stormed to victory in a 2001 election.

''Bad, bad, bad,'' Berlusconi was quoted as saying by Il Messaggero newspaper after the debate, which centred largely on economic and domestic issues.

The prime minister had pushed hard for a head-to-head with Prodi, hoping that a direct confrontation would help him close the gap on the centre-left, which stands at some 4 percentage points, by winning over the large number of undecided voters.

But while Prodi regularly smiled and directly addressed the camera, Berlusconi adopted a more negative tone, repeatedly accusing his opponent of ''distorting the truth''. Berlusconi also poured out a torrent of statistics.

A Piepoli poll said 38 per cent of viewers thought Prodi had won the encounter against 35 per cent for Berlusconi. A Swg poll put Prodi ahead by 42.6 per cent to 35.6, a Contacta poll put Prodi at 50.6 per cent to 49.4, while a survey in la Repubblica daily gave victory to Prodi by 50 per cent to 44 per cent.

The outcome was greeted with relief by Piero Fassino, head of the largest opposition party, the Democrats of the Left.

''On the one side there was a statesman who was precise, concrete, passionate and looked forward to the future. On the other side there was a man on the defensive, who was pointlessly polemical and devoid of arguments,'' he told reporters.

Berlusconi's allies said their man had been hindered by the debate format, which was copied from US presidential races.

''Berlusconi should drop this kind of confrontation and go instead to the streets and squares for direct contact with the people,'' said Roberto Calderoli, a senior leader in the ruling coalition party, the Northern League.

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