Salvini snubs Renzi on TV debate (2)

(ANSA) - Rome, February 16 - League leader Matteo Salvini on Friday snubbed Democratic Party (PD) leader Matteo Renzi saying he would not have a TV debate with him ahead of the March 4 general election, prompting Renzi to say campaigns without televised debates were absurd.
    Anti-migrant, Euroskeptic League leader Salvini on Friday said he would not engage in a TV debate with Renzi ahead of the election. Salvini said he had been "asking for face-to-face talks with Renzi for years and he always indignantly refused, and now I'm supposed to suddenly interrupt my electoral tour to make him happy - it's too late".
    "I'm not going to betray the thousands of voters who flock to my rallies, who are awaiting me next week in Emilia and Tuscany, which have been betrayed by the PD.
    "I'm looking to the future and I'm not going to waste my time with someone who's had too much time.
    "If Renzi wants a debate I'll see him in a piazza, perhaps in Bologna where many voters are shifting from the PD to the League." Renzi responded to Salvini's snub by saying general-election debate without TV debates is "absurd". Summing up "the situation" on Facebook, Renzi said Salvini did not want to debate him on TV because "he doesn't have time for TV, he must do rallies in piazzas" while anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Luigi Di Maio doesn't want a debate "because I haven't got the same status as him, I'm not up to his level." Centre-right Forza Italia (FI) leader Silvio Berlusconi, meanwhile, "only has debates with (RAI talk show host Bruno) Vespa and his memories". Renzi said: "It doesn't change much for us: we will be the top parliamentary group (after the March 4 elections), the top party. "I'm struck by the absurdity of a political debate without TV debates. "Welcome to the 2018 Italian electoral campaign".
    Di Maio reiterated Friday he would not debate Renzi on Italian television. "Not even Salvini finds a debate with the PD leader interesting. "Renzi, a man alone with the remote control," Di Maio said on Twitter, posting a link to Laura Pausini's song La Solitudine (Loneliness).