One of the election traditions that has taken deep root in the US system of democracy is the holding of televised presidential debates between the candidates of the two main political parties in that country. These debates have become such an important feature of American democracy that it would be inconceivable for any candidate who has gone through the long US process of choosing to decline to participate. This would be seen by voters across that nation as a sure sign that the declining candidate was not fit and proper to reign or rule. The tradition of televised leadership debates is not one of the American cultural exports to the world that has quickly taken root in other cultures. But, last week, a green shoot of the idea that first germinated in 1960 with the debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon took hold in Great Britain with a debate among the candidates for the three major parties waging electoral battle toward a May 6 poll.
The great advantage that such debates have is that they allow potential voters and people who are sitting on political fences an opportunity to see the main candidates in an election race respond to questions asked by a moderator and to points made by their opponents. The presidential debates deal almost exclusively with policies and issues of importance to the future of the country. In the 2008 debates between then Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain, among the most closely followed and parsed answers would have been those which dealt with the impact of the financial crisis on the average man-in-the-street voter in the US. The debates are not the free-for-all, loudest-mouth-wins type of debate that is now being engaged in on street corners and in rum shops across this country. Presidential debates operate within a tight format with agreement between the leaders on the topics, the length of time candidates can take to make opening statements, answer questions, issue rejoinders or the role of the audience.
As a media group, we strongly endorse the concept behind the establishment by the T&T Chamber of Industry and Commerce of the Trinidad and Tobago Debates Commission. We also strongly support their efforts, although this was not clearly outlined in their release yesterday, to encourage the country's two main leaders to engage in a prime ministerial debate on "matters of national importance which are in the public interest." In its statement, the Chamber said that it "believes that national leadership debates facilitated by the commission will be a truly pioneering, transformational and nation- building initiative that will contribute significantly to our country's quest for the achievement of developed nation status."
We agree. While there is no doubt that the goals of the initiative are entirely laudable, it must be slightly disappointing that the Chamber was not ready or willing to roll out the full details of the board of this not-for-profit T&T Debates Commission and the body's code of conduct. We urge the Chamber to move quickly to rectify this absence of details as failure to do so may raise suspicions about the motivation of the country's premier private sector body, whose president boldly urged Prime Minister Patrick Manning to provide the date of the general election at a luncheon on April 14. No one should need reminding that the general election is now less than one month away and that the process of negotiating the format and rules of the prime ministerial debate may be protracted. It is only in outlining the details of the commission and its code of conduct that the public would be able to determine whether the commission can, in fact, live up to the "professionalism, impartiality and rigour of the process" which Chamber president Angella Persad promised yesterday.
