Is the de­bate still on? That was the ques­tion many peo­ple asked on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day af­ter news broke that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar–leader of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment–had opt­ed not to par­tic­i­pate in to­mor­row's T&T De­bates Com­mis­sion's lead­ers' de­bate.It was the sec­ond and fi­nal de­bate in the run-up to next Mon­day's lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. Last week Tues­day, se­nior par­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the PP Gov­ern­ment, the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice and the In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty par­tic­i­pat­ed in the de­bate.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the com­mis­sion said it was with "deep re­gret" that it learnt of Per­sad-Bisses­sar's de­ci­sion to not par­tic­i­pate in the de­bate and del­e­gate Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har–the leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, a mem­ber unit of the PP–to rep­re­sent the Gov­ern­ment. It is ask­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar to "re­con­sid­er her de­ci­sion not to par­tic­i­pate."The com­mis­sion said the Fyz­abad De­c­la­ra­tion of April 2010, which ef­fec­tive­ly es­tab­lished the PP, stat­ed that its leader was Per­sad-Bisses­sar. The com­mis­sion said it specif­i­cal­ly in­vit­ed the lead­ers of the PP, PNM, MSJ and ILP "to en­gage in the lead­ers' de­bate."It said giv­en the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal dis­pen­sa­tion, the views of the lead­ers of the par­ties were im­por­tant for lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.

And Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is await­ing the res­o­lu­tion of this mat­ter to de­ter­mine his next move.

Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor and PNM PRO Faris Al-Rawi con­firmed that Row­ley was ea­ger­ly await­ing the de­bate with the PM and oth­ers.Al-Rawi said yes­ter­day that the de­bate was an ex­cel­lent fo­rum to hear from all the lead­ers on lo­cal gov­ern­ment is­sues pre­sent­ed. He said the PM's with­draw­al at the eleventh hour was "ex­treme­ly cu­ri­ous" as it showed that she may not be in con­trol of her PP Gov­ern­ment.He said the lat­est de­vel­op­ment may be an in­di­ca­tion that she was un­der the con­trol of a ca­bal.He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar has be­come the on­ly past or present prime min­is­ter who speaks in­fre­quent­ly in Par­lia­ment, ex­cept when she speaks last.He said Row­ley was await­ing the next move by the De­bates Com­mis­sion in this mat­ter.And leader of the MSJ, David Ab­du­lah de­scribes the PM's and ILP leader Jack Warn­er not to par­tic­i­pate in the de­bate as "pet­ti­ness." Warn­er has re­port­ed­ly said he won't par­tic­i­pate in the de­bate if the PM was not in­volved.

Ra­mad­har in a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day said he was look­ing "for­ward to shar­ing our ideas for the fu­ture with the vot­ers this week."He added: "COP fought hard on be­half of its thou­sands of mem­bers to se­cure a seat at the ta­ble dur­ing these de­bates, and we plan to make the most of the op­por­tu­ni­ty this presents."He said the COP wel­comed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to share "our vi­sion for the fu­ture with vot­ers."Speak­ing at a walk­a­bout in Lisas Gar­dens, Point Lisas yes­ter­day, Row­ley said that the PNM was un­de­cid­ed about its par­tic­i­pa­tion in to­mor­row's na­tion­al lead­er­ship de­bate or­gan­ised by the T&T De­bates Com­mis­sion."We have signed on to tak­ing part in a lead­er­ship de­bate...so as long as there is a lead­er­ship to de­bate, we are on and if there is no lead­er­ship then we have to re­view that. We are pre­pared, but our com­mit­ment is to a lead­er­ship de­bate."Last week, se­nior rep­re­sen­ta­tives four po­lit­i­cal par­ties par­tic­i­pat­ed in a lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion de­bate. Among de­baters were Akins Vi­dale of the MSJ, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Dr Sura­jrat­tan Ram­bachan and PNM MP Colm Im­bert.