Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Con­gress of the Peo­ple Leader Prakash Ra­mad­har says the T&T De­bates Com­mis­sion was mis­guid­ed in its ap­proach to its Lead­ers' De­bate.The de­bate, which was sched­uled for last night, was can­celled on Mon­day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained her de­ci­sion to del­e­gate Ra­mad­har to rep­re­sent the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship.

Yes­ter­day Ra­mad­har, speak­ing with re­porters dur­ing Na­pari­ma Girls' High School's speech day and awards cer­e­mo­ny, at Susamachar Pres­by­ter­ian Church, San Fer­nan­do, said the com­mis­sion erred in its rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what it con­sid­ered a lead­er­ship de­bate.The com­mis­sion, in an­nounc­ing its de­ci­sion to can­cel the event, stat­ed that no sub­sti­tutes were per­mit­ted.

Ra­mad­har added: "The De­bates Com­mis­sion mis­guid­ed it­self, not ful­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ing its stat­ed pur­pose which is to en­light­en the pop­u­la­tion on po­lit­i­cal growth in the coun­try."The age of coali­tion gov­ern­ment is up­on us and there­fore it would have been im­por­tant to recog­nise in­de­pen­dent po­lit­i­cal par­ties with their own lead­ers that would ex­ist in a part­ner­ship and not lose iden­ti­ty."

Ra­mad­har said such lead­ers would have the right to speak on be­half of their par­ty and "if nom­i­nat­ed to be a leader with­in the part­ner­ship for that pur­pose (as well)."Re­flect­ing on the can­cel­la­tion, Ra­mad­har said: "I think it was grave er­ror."I am cer­tain that we will all learn from the ex­pe­ri­ence as we move for­ward be­cause de­bates are crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant and it should not be about ti­tles on­ly.

"Yes, it's a lead­er­ship de­bate but I am a leader of my par­ty. Whether you like it or not I am the leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, a sig­nif­i­cant part of the Part­ner­ship and we cre­at­ed the Part­ner­ship."The Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter said he stood ready to de­bate any­one at any time."I am not afraid," Ra­mad­har added.He dis­missed state­ments that Per­sad-Bisses­sar "ducked and ran" from the de­bate. In fact, he said, the Prime Min­is­ter should be ap­plaud­ed for her de­ci­sion to al­low him to rep­re­sent the Gov­ern­ment.

"I think that as the co-par­ent of the Part­ner­ship she act­ed re­spon­si­bly in al­low­ing the COP a space," he said.Ra­mad­har said to den­i­grate the Prime Min­is­ter's ef­fort with­out un­der­stand­ing the mag­na­nim­i­ty of her of­fer was not right.He opt­ed not to com­ment on Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) de­ci­sion to se­lect Crime Watch host Ian Al­leyne as its can­di­date for the St Joseph by elec­tion."That is a UNC choice," he added.