To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

?The PNM should have stuck to the po­si­tion first adopt­ed by its po­lit­i­cal leader, Patrick Man­ning, that he did not stand to ben­e­fit from a face-to-face de­bate with his op­po­nent, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

By re­spond­ing in the man­ner he did to the in­vi­ta­tion of the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce for the par­ty leader to de­bate with Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, PNM chair­man Con­rad Enill may have in­tro­duced disin­ge­nu­ity to the pot which had pre­vi­ous­ly re­ceived a dash of dis­dain from the re­fusal of his po­lit­i­cal leader, Mr Man­ning. The rea­sons ad­vanced by Mr Enill–that the de­bate would have been rushed, that dates, times, venues, mod­er­a­tors and the like be­ing ad­vanced with­out the in­put of the PNM, and the par­ty not be­ing giv­en suf­fi­cient time for ad­e­quate prepa­ra­tion–are all is­sues that are wor­thy of de­lib­er­a­tion. And, in fact, these is­sues have been the sub­ject of a great deal of pri­or ne­go­ti­a­tion in the US, where the idea of pre-elec­tion lead­er­ship de­bates has been pop­u­larised.

But the ques­tion must be asked: Who set the elec­tion date? Giv­en the very short­ness of time that the PNM says mil­i­tat­ed against its par­tic­i­pa­tion, should the Cham­ber have pro­cras­ti­nat­ed with­out ad­vanc­ing prepa­ra­tions? Why did it take the PNM more than three weeks to re­spond to the in­vi­ta­tion to de­bate? If there was gen­uine in­ter­est in the first in­stance, why did the PNM not im­me­di­ate­ly en­gage the Cham­ber to ne­go­ti­ate the par­ty's par­tic­i­pa­tion in the ex­er­cise? The stat­ed com­mit­ment of the PNM, as ar­tic­u­lat­ed by the chair­man, "to en­sur­ing a free and fair elec­tion by a well in­formed elec­torate" is hol­low, spe­cial­ly com­ing from a par­ty that has ex­ist­ed for 54 years and par­tic­i­pat­ed in every elec­tion since 1956. What more time for prepa­ra­tion for se­ri­ous dis­cus­sion of its plans and poli­cies does the PNM re­quire?

More­over, this year's re­fusal is just the lat­est oc­ca­sion go­ing back sev­er­al elec­tions when the PNM has re­fused to en­gage in pub­lic de­bate with its op­po­nents. Its re­luc­tance even to con­sid­er ne­go­ti­at­ing the terms of a de­bate is sur­pris­ing, giv­en the Prime Min­is­ter's 39 years of con­tin­u­ous oc­cu­pa­tion of a seat in Par­lia­ment and the fact that the main hall­mark of that in­sti­tu­tion is the cut and thrust of de­bate. It would be quite a shock to most of those who in­tend to vote on May 24 if T&T's most ex­pe­ri­enced par­lia­men­tar­i­an was not al­so its most ac­com­plished de­bater–and did not con­sid­er him­self as such. As a means of seek­ing to ar­gue its way out of the de­bate, the PNM state­ment claims a de­bate would be ad­van­ta­geous to the UNC. The ba­sis for that po­si­tion is that where­as the PNM has a track record and a set of poli­cies and pro­grammes, the UNC does not.

That of course is far from the truth as the UNC was in pow­er for six years and the par­ty and its coali­tion part­ners are all or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als who have known po­si­tions and track records. In some cas­es that his­to­ry of po­lit­i­cal ser­vice re­flects well on the in­di­vid­u­als and the UNC and its coali­tion part­ners–and in oth­er cas­es it re­flects poor­ly. The ques­tion to Mr Man­ning is why would his par­ty not ben­e­fit in the same man­ner as the UNC from an open and frank de­bate about re­al is­sues, giv­en the PNM's track record of stew­ard­ship, both good and bad, over the last nine years.

Can it be be­cause Mr Man­ning is afraid of be­ing up­staged by Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar? Or does he feel that he would he not be able to stand up to frank de­bat­ing on the Calder Hart, Ude­cott, and Gua­napo church is­sues?

We call on the rul­ing par­ty to re­con­sid­er its de­ci­sion not to par­tic­i­pate in an elec­tion de­bate, giv­en the de­bat­ing skills of its leader and the un­doubt­ed con­tri­bu­tion the par­ty has made to this coun­try's de­vel­op­ment in the last 54 years in gen­er­al and specif­i­cal­ly in the last nine year. Even at this point it is not too late to en­gage in the ne­go­ti­a­tions over the de­tails of the de­bate.