Prodi Deemed Winner in Italy Election Debate

An unexpectedly animated Romano Prodi threw Silvio Berlusconi on to the defensive last night in the first televised debate of Italy's general election campaign.

Looking at ease in front of the cameras, Mr Prodi portrayed himself as a man with answers to the problems that he argued Italy faced after five years of government by the right.

Neither man landed a knockout punch but whereas the opposition leader concentrated on his plans for the future, Mr Berlusconi repeatedly listed his government's achievements, blaming failures on problems inherited from the left.

That allowed Mr Prodi to score the most decisive point of the evening. "Let's talk about the future," he said. "I hope there's time, otherwise quite rightly half the Italians will have preferred to go off to bed."

When Mr Berlusconi persisted in attributing Italy's problems to the past, his rival turned to the camera saying: "He's in government and [yet] he's going back to Garibaldi to apportion blame."

Mr Prodi, a former economics professor, is handicapped by an unincisive voice. But he had apparently been coached into making it more penetrating, and his body language was also more commanding.

Mr Berlusconi scribbled nervously on the pad in front of him while speaking, and spent more time looking down at the table than up at the cameras. His rival deployed a wide range of gestures and addressed many of his remarks directly to the viewers at home.

Mr Berlusconi let loose what his opponent described as an "avalanche" of statistics whereas Mr Prodi deployed the family images and plain language that have traditionally been specialities of the prime minister.

Mr Berlusconi may also have lost some female voters along the way. Pressed on the tiny number of women in Italian politics, Mr Berlusconi blamed it on their reluctance to "leave their children and their husbands" to come to Rome.

A straw poll of leading advertising and PR executives conducted by the Italian news agency Apcom gave Mr Prodi a "victory on points".

A poll and a survey on the internet last night suggested Mr Prodi had won the debate. Sky Tg24's poll found 38% of those questioned thought Mr Prodi had won against 35% who favoured Mr Berlusconi. A vote on the website of the Corriere della Sera newspaper gave a more decisive result: 55% to 39% in favour of Mr Prodi.