Two live-broad­cast de­bates be­tween the lead­ers of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) will be held on Au­gust 20 and Au­gust 27,ac­cord­ing to a state­ment re­leased by theT&T De­bates Com­mis­sion (TTDC) on Ju­ly 14.

The re­lease al­soad­dressed con­cerns over the with­draw­al of a Ju­ly 30 date for the so-called 'Great De­bate'.

"The TTDC would like to state that it has held nine meet­ings over the course of the last two months ahead of our de­ci­sion. We have lis­tened to all the views put for­ward and we con­tin­ue to act with in­tegri­ty, with trans­paren­cy and with fair­ness by en­gag­ing eq­ui­tably with all par­ties. We are con­fi­dent that all el­i­gi­ble en­ti­ties would ben­e­fit from the unique plat­form, which the de­bates af­ford par­ty lead­ers through this unique and broad me­dia out­reach," the re­lease said.

It added, "For the record, the TTDC did try to ac­com­mo­date a re­quest by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) rep­re­sen­ta­tive, to hold an ex­clu­sive de­bate be­tween the leader of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP), Prime Min­is­ter, the ho­n­ourable Mrs. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Dr. the ho­n­ourable Kei­th Row­ley. How­ev­er, de­spite our ef­forts to find an ac­cept­able mid­dle ground be­tween both par­ties, the TTDC has been un­able to de­liv­er a so­lu­tion that is work­able."

The date-change is"con­sis­tent with the cri­te­ria for par­tic­i­pa­tion not­ed in our rules and guide­lines, shared with all and al­lows the TTDC to iden­ti­fy all the en­ti­ties who qual­i­fy to par­tic­i­pate in the de­bates af­ter the an­nounce­ment of Nom­i­na­tion Day which falls on Au­gust 17th, 2015," the re­lease said.

The aim of the tele­vised de­bates is to en­rol the elec­torate, es­pe­cial­ly un­de­cid­ed vot­ers, to make choic­es from a more in­formed per­spec­tive, the re­lease said.

"The Com­mis­sion aims to do so by giv­ing vot­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to hear from all our po­lit­i­cal lead­ers in a struc­tured de­bate set­ting, their re­spons­es to is­sues drawn from the wider pub­lic and which the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go deem to be of rel­e­vance and im­por­tance," the re­lease said.

Over the last six years, the TTDC arranged de­bates ahead of the 2010 and 2013 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions and for the 2013 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions.

"The TTDC con­sid­ers that the ad­di­tion of de­bates to our po­lit­i­cal cul­ture will on­ly en­hance our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process and we look for­ward to this be­com­ing an en­dur­ing ad­di­tion to our gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign­ing process."