GILLIAN LUCKY

At the time of writ­ing, there is great an­tic­i­pa­tion for the de­bate in­volv­ing the three lead­ers of the par­ties con­test­ing the THA elec­tions. Ku­dos must be giv­en to the peo­ple re­spon­si­ble for im­ple­ment­ing this ini­tia­tive and those who have ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the event.

Many were un­sure whether the de­bate would oc­cur be­cause the or­gan­i­sa­tion of such an event is no easy task. The good news is that the hur­dles were over­come so that all cit­i­zens could ben­e­fit from lis­ten­ing to or view­ing this his­toric event.

Our coun­try is ca­pa­ble of achiev­ing po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty and this de­bate pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the elec­torate to as­sess con­test­ing par­ties and can­di­dates based on their abil­i­ty to ad­dress the is­sues that are of na­tion­al im­por­tance.

The fact that To­ba­go is lead­ing the charge in this di­rec­tion of pos­i­tive po­lit­i­cal growth by pro­vid­ing a plat­form that will en­gage the at­ten­tion of, not on­ly the vot­ers in To­ba­go, but the en­tire pop­u­la­tion of our Re­pub­lic is of great sig­nif­i­cance be­cause for too long the con­tri­bu­tion of our sis­ter isle has been tak­en for grant­ed.

What­ev­er the out­come of the de­bate, a prece­dent has been set and it will be very dif­fi­cult for par­ties in fu­ture elec­tions, whether lo­cal or gen­er­al, not to pro­vide the cit­i­zen­ry with a sim­i­lar type of de­bate in­volv­ing the lead­ers of the re­spec­tive po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties.

Win­ning the de­bate

This de­bate is a means to en­cour­age lead­ers to fo­cus on is­sues and not get car­ried away with po­lit­i­cal rhetoric and pro­pa­gan­da con­coct­ed sole­ly for the pur­pose of woo­ing, by mis­lead­ing, the elec­torate.

The dis­cus­sion is in a con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment so that speak­ers can­not re­ly on be­ing over­come by the mo­ment as an ex­cuse for any slips of the tongue or in­ap­pro­pri­ate re­marks.

There has been suf­fi­cient time for prepa­ra­tion by the par­tic­i­pants and all the speak­ers are vet­er­an politi­cians who are very fa­mil­iar with mat­ters af­fect­ing To­ba­go. But even the best or­a­tors need sup­port and ad­vice, so it ex­pect­ed that they have re­ceived words of wis­dom from their col­leagues to win the de­bate.

Much is rest­ing on the abil­i­ty of the de­baters to con­vince vot­ers that the par­ty they rep­re­sent will gen­uine­ly look af­ter the in­ter­ests of To­bag­o­ni­ans and we have al­ways been told that un­like Trinida­di­ans, To­bag­o­ni­ans are not gullible peo­ple.

Chain re­ac­tion

The in­ter­est gen­er­at­ed by this de­bate will un­doubt­ed­ly en­cour­age oth­er in­ter­est groups to fol­low suit and pro­vide plat­forms for peoople to en­gage in mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sion.

There are many im­por­tant mat­ters that must be placed in the pub­lic do­main in or­der to can­vass the views of those who are ex­perts in the area and to record and ad­dress the con­cerns of cit­i­zens af­fect­ed by mat­ters of pub­lic im­por­tance.

Ad­mit­ted­ly, there are many ra­dio and tele­vi­sion pro­grammes that en­able peo­ple to ex­press their views about a va­ri­ety of top­ics but, in some in­stances, de­pend­ing on the sub­ject, it is im­por­tant to have a struc­tured and com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to ad­dress the par­tic­u­lar mat­ter.

The de­bate in To­ba­go should spark suf­fi­cient in­ter­est so that the ques­tion be­comes: when is our next de­bate and what is the top­ic?

We are a coun­try of talk­ers and it is time for us to con­vert the ole talk in­to mean­ing­ful de­bate so that peo­ple could form opin­ions based on plat­forms of knowl­edge.

Re­al win­ners

We all have every­thing to gain and noth­ing to lose by in­sist­ing that those who want our votes must sub­ject them­selves to pub­lic as­sess­ment on neu­tral turf.

It is one thing to speak glibly on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form to thou­sands of par­ty loy­al­ists wav­ing flags and ban­ners in en­er­gised sup­port but it is quite dif­fer­ent when the at­mos­phere is sober and in­tense.

De­baters do not have the ben­e­fit of dis­trac­tion or the abil­i­ty to call for back-up when in ver­bal dif­fi­cul­ty, so that the pres­sure is al­ways on to per­form at one's best.

The de­bate is not on­ly about the speak­er, but the team he or she rep­re­sents. In this case, fail­ure by any de­bater to per­form at a high lev­el could be viewed as an in­dict­ment against the en­tire par­ty he rep­re­sents.

There is no room for er­ror by any of the play­ers and they all are aware of the high stakes. May the best man win.