Ali­cia Llanos

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce yes­ter­day launched the T&T De­bates Com­mis­sion at its West­moor­ing of­fice. Cham­ber pres­i­dent An­gel­la Per­sad is the chair of the com­mis­sion. The com­mis­sion hopes to cre­ate a bet­ter in­formed elec­torate for the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion through tele­vised po­lit­i­cal de­bates. Yes­ter­day, the com­mis­sion an­nounced the dates and for­mat of two de­bates be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion be­fore the May 24 elec­tion at the Cham­ber of Com­merce Build­ing, Colum­bus Cir­cle, West­moor­ings.

Per­sad said the goal of the de­bates was to fur­nish the elec­torate with a clear un­der­stand­ing as to where each po­lit­i­cal par­ty stands on the is­sues that af­fect the pop­u­la­tion. She said the re­sult would be a more in­formed elec­torate with a strength­ened un­der­stand­ing of democ­ra­cy. She added the com­mis­sion aimed to de­vel­op a tele­vised de­bate fo­rum sim­i­lar to that used Amer­i­can pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.

Per­sad said the com­mis­sion had re­ceived ad­vice from the Unit­ed States Com­mis­sion of Pres­i­den­tial De­bates and the Ja­maican De­bate Com­mit­tee.

She said two de­bates had been sched­uled to be tele­vised pub­licly via the lo­cal sta­tions. The first de­bate will take place on May 13 and will fo­cus on so­cial and eco­nom­ic is­sues. It will be mod­er­at­ed by for­mer Jus­tice of Ap­peal Ul­ric Cross. Two teams com­pris­ing two rep­re­sen­ta­tives each, nom­i­nat­ed by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship al­liance, have been in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate.

The sec­ond de­bate will take place on May 18 and will fo­cus on lead­er­ship is­sues. The po­lit­i­cal lead­ers of the PNM and the al­liance have been in­vit­ed to at­tend. This will be mod­er­at­ed by Sir Shri­dath Ram­phal, for­mer Com­mon­wealth Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary. Mem­bers of the com­mis­sion in­clude Per­sad; Ian Col­lier, for­mer cham­ber pres­i­dent; Ronald Har­ford, chair­man of Re­pub­lic Bank; Owen Bap­tiste, for­mer ed­i­tor-in-chief of the Guardian; Fr Clyde Har­vey, RC priest; and Prof Rho­da Red­dock, deputy prin­ci­pal of UWI, St Au­gus­tine.