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A review of T&T's first televised political debate

July 23, 2010 by Edmund Gall

I've just witnessed T&T's first national political debate prior to an election, televised live on CNMG's C TV (find the recorded video here).  Here are my initial views.

First, I must, like others I've spoken with via facebook during the show, commend the T&T Debates Commission (TTDC) for facilitating the event, CNMG's C TV for broadcasting it over-the-air in T&T and over the Internet via their website (for free - take note Guardian Media Group), and the PNM and People's Partnership for agreeing to participate in this historic event. While critical analysis will follow in the hours and days ahead, constructive or otherwise, I am very grateful to all parties for taking such an important step to advance our political culture.

Here are some of the things I thought worked well.  The TTDC published the debate format, and rules and guidelines for the participants, moderator, questioners and studio audience on their website so the public could assess beforehand.  The TTDC also recognised (somewhat) the worth of social media in today's public relations strategies and created its own facebook page (as did C TV with its own pages for C News Live and First Up, their flagship programmes). {Read more}

Why T&T cannot host a proper election debate in 2010

April 25, 2010 by Edmund Gall

There is a wonderful lobby underway for a televised Election Debate in T&T involving the candidates applying to become our next Prime Minister.  In my view, I don't think T&T is ready for it at this time, and realistically, I don't think there is enough time to organise a proper debate.  However, I wish to propose a solution.
 
Election debates are meant to help voters learn more about the candidates and the policies they stand for, hopefully leading to an informed voting decision.  It requires candidates to be practiced in defending their policies, track records and promises in a manner that none of them have been subjected to in T&T so far.  Not even by the media.  Parliamentary 'debate' is not good practice because members, lately, read out lengthy contributions from pre-written scripts (which is actually against the rules, but no-one seems to care).  No MP knows how to give a proper response to very challenging questions in under three minutes - just read any of the Q&A articles published in the Sunday newspapers.  If any of the candidates go into a proper election debate with only Parliament as practice, they would be woefully unprepared to respond quickly and cogently to statements made by their competitors.  Result: the debate would collapse into a glorified platform for unhelpful rhetoric and voters would mistakenly conclude that all our candidates are incapable of running a country (when really they're only incapable of handling or communicating effectively during a debate).
 
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