Farrugia to attend Xarabank debate tonight, Franco Debono calls Busuttil ‘coward’

Labour has accepted to have Xarabank presenter Peppi Azzopardi present a debate on Saturday evening (tonight) between deputy leader Anglu Farrugia and his Nationalist counterpart Simon Busuttil, after the party refused to participate in the programme yesterday.

Farrugia's encounter with the newly-elected deputy leader was scheduled two weeks ago but cancelled due to personal reasons for the Labour MP, and rescheduled to take place on Friday evening.

But Labour's communications coordinator Kurt Farrugia informed Azzopardi at the Where's Everybody studios in Qormi just prior to the start of the programme that Labour was giving up its participation to have rebel Nationalist MP Franco Debono air his gripes to Busuttil.

Franco Debono will be appearing on Bla Agenda on One TV this evening, which will be aired at the same time of Xarabank where he will respond to the debate on the state broadcaster in real-time.

It was pure pandemonium inside the studios as Debono demanded that he faces Busuttil and make his point over why he voted against the budget on Monday, a move that spelt the fall of Lawrence Gonzi's government and paved way for elections on 9 March 2013.

Labour said it had evaluated Franco Debono's demand to take up airtime, and that accepted his request to make way for him to face Busuttil - but it denied having sent the government MP to "represent" Labour.

After emerging from the green room, Busuttil said that Labour had "given certification that it is a cowardly party of gimmicks. It is unfortunate that this programme had to be cancelled for this reason. I am here, and I am waiting, and I am ready to debate the deputy leader. If this is the government that Joseph Muscat is promising, then we have much to be concerned about."

In comments he posted in his personal blog, Debono said 'GonziPN' "had a coward more" with Simon Busuttil.

"He is a huge step backwards. Simon the coward is different from Gonzi - he is a little worse! Simon, I am no Barbie - I am used to fighting cases in court defending people's liberties. You are just hollow and inflated - no substance. Not even a shred of pride... Karol Aquilina had to come to the rescue - what a bunch of miserable idiots all of you are."

Debono hit out at Xarabank presenter Peppi Azzopardi, deriding the presenter for inviting hypnotist Alan Bates twice in the last three months, but not an MP who was planning to vote against the budget.

"I am proud to have voted against the budget and against an oppressive public broadcaster - one of the reasons the budget did not pass is the state of Peppi Broadcasting Services."

Debono also described Busuttil as having "no substance, no spine and no character...   that is delicious material for the clique - he is manipulated, coached, he cannot improvise and today he was scared stiff."

Later on Friday evening, the main television stations exploited the incident with their own version of events: the PBS hosted Peppi Azzopardi complaining that Labour could not expect to send in replacement to face off Busuttil other than their deputy leader; on One TV, Labour spokesperson Kurt Farrugia said the party would only accept an impartial presenter other than Azzopardi and said Franco Debono had exposed the kind of collusion between Where's Everybody and the Nationalist government; while on Net TV, secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier said the incident had exposed the collusion between Debono and Labour.

Debono's reaction on One TV was to accused his own party of being cowards: "I have been waiting for ages to get some airtime on PBS to make my point, because I am never invited on PBS. If I am so irrelevant, why are they so scared of facing me?"

Debono was also heard complaining in the Where's Everybody studios saying that presenter Peppi Azzopardi had acted as a mediator between him and the Prime Minister, although he did not indicate when such a meeting had taken place.

It is an ironic twist of events: in the 2008 election, Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando 'gatecrashed' the PBS studios to face off Labour leader Alfred Sant in a debate, after he was issued with a fast-tracked press card to stand as a Nationalist party media journalist in a Broadcasting Authority event. Years later, Pullicino Orlando now alienated from his own party, revealed that Peppi Azzopardi had coached him for the momentous event.

Now it's Azzopardi who is once again being conjured up as a mediator of sorts for Franco Debono and the Prime Minister.

In comments on PBS on Friday, Azzopardi said the programme had been scheduled weeks ago after discussions had took place with the parties' respective communications coordinators. "If this had been a debate between the party leaders, nobody could have taken the place of any one of the leaders. So there was no way that somebody else could replace the Labour deputy leader.

"Had Anglu Farrugia come to Xarabank and instead of Simon Busuttil he found Labour MP Adrian Vassallo to rubbish Labour as some party of communists, you can imagine the kind of outrage there would be at a tactic like this."

The party also invited Busuttil to debate with Anglu Farrugia on the party's TV station's Bla Agenda talk-show on Saturday evening.

Labour's communications coordinator Kurt Farrugia has insisted that Simon Busuttil has refused to appear with Farrugia on the PBS talk-show TVAM and Realtà. "What should be discussed is PBS's unwillingness to allow Debono to air his views on state TV. He has already described PBS as a 'Nationalist party każin'. Farrugia on his part has already featured in a debate with Busuttil on on church radio RTK. PBS are part of a cover-up to deny Debono airtime."

In a statement, the Nationalist Party said that Labour had "hidden Anglu Farrugia because it fears pitting him in a debate with Simon Busuttil. This is the third time that labour has not sent its deputy leaders in a debate with Simon Busuttil. Labour is bereft of any arguments or policies. Muscat is using other people instead, and today he has come out as a coward."

The long-awaited debate between Busuttil and Farrugia on Xarabank was arguably an opportunity for the PN to deploy its new political 'weapon' against Labour's deputy leader on the stage of the popular Friday night talk show, which has one of the highest ratings on Maltese television.