[attach id=219779 size="large"]Simon Busuttil. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli[/attach]

The Nationalist Party’s newly elected deputy leader Simon Busuttil yesterday ended up without a sparring partner on the popular current affairs programme Dissett when the Labour Party failed to nominate a representative.

Show host Reno Bugeja had asked to have Labour’s own deputy leader Toni Abela for the debate with Dr Busuttil but was told on Thursday that he was “unavailable”.

He asked if the party could send someone else but even this offer was not taken up.

Instead, Dr Busuttil ended up being interviewed alone, only days after he granted a round of interviews to journalists in the wake of his election.

Labour party spokesman Kurt Farrugia said Dr Abela was unavailable.

PBS does not dictate the agenda- Labour

“PBS does not dictate the agenda. Toni Abela was indisposed for the programme on Saturday. It was only at the eleventh hour that PBS asked the PL to nominate someone else.”

The party has been engagedin a tug of war with PBS over the past weeks after having secured the right, through a Broadcasting Authority ruling, to nominate its own speakers during current affairs programmes rather than allow journalists the freedom to choose.

Mr Farrugia said the Labour Party simply did not want the same faces to appear on televised debates.

“Differently from GonziPN, which sends only the select few to face debates, the PL representatives are always ready to debate anyone as has been done on every programme and every channel on the island.”

Yesterday’s no show comes after the party’s other deputy leader, Anġlu Farrugia, asked PBS’s weekly talk show Xarabank to postpone a debate with Dr Busuttil, which was meant to take place last Friday.

“He said he had personal reasons which I understood to be urgent, so we offered to postpone it because I would rather move the debate than have Dr Busuttil appear on his own,” presenter Peppi Azzopardi said.

The debate has now been moved to Friday, a date confirmed by both Dr Farrugia and the PL spokesman, Mr Azzopardi pointed out.