Last Thursday evening, the Caribbean New Media Group was able to host a very informative Leadership Exchange that ought to have been a debate between Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Leader of the Opposition Dr Keith Rowley. Instead it became a high-profile question and answer session for the Prime Minister in the presence of a panel that consisted of well-known media personalities, namely Dr Morgan Job, Ms Isha Wells and Derek Ramsamooj.
This event only took place because of the error of communication committed by the Debates Commission of the Chamber of Commerce who wrote to the Prime Minister confirming July 30 as the date for a leadership debate between herself and Dr Rowley at CNMG. Tragically, they also wrote to Rowley with a proposal, not a confirmation, for the date that they had confirmed with the Prime Minister.
With the venue being booked and the Prime Minister clearing her diary for the event, it was subsequently revealed that Rowley was not given the same correspondence. That embarrassment deprived the country of a leadership debate that would have been very interesting regardless of whenever it was held.
The Debates Commission changed its mind on July 30 after their error was made public and they have now chosen August 20 and 27 for their debates. With trust in their competence running low because of their prior error in such a heated election atmosphere, it is difficult to envisage them being able to have the Prime Minister attending their events.
Thursday night's encounter was conversational and put the Prime Minister in the spotlight in a way that many people had not seen her. She was able to field questions that ranged from allegations of corruption in her government to what she thinks her legacy would be. In between, she was able to articulate her agenda for a second term which is what most people wanted to hear.
As it turned out, the engagement was credible because the line of questioning was categorised in such a way that she had to address a fairly broad spectrum of headings that permitted a diversity of policy issues to be covered.
As a member of the PNM and a former PNM councillor on the Port-of-Spain City Corporation, I sha Wells was not attending that event to ask the Prime Minister any softball questions, but rather she got straight to the point about matters that she has discussed as a radio talk show host over the last five of her eight years on radio. Her interest in the welfare of citizens in east Port-of-Spain and Laventille shone through and she got access to an opportunity that, in the context of global media, any radio presenter would have embraced as part of their own career development.
Dr Morgan Job needed no introduction to the national community and his core philosophical beliefs were embedded in his line of questioning. He needed to be prompted on one or two occasions about asking his question as he was getting a bit carried away in articulating the preamble to his questions, but we have become accustomed to his passion for articulating his firmly held beliefs.
Derek Ramsamooj blended politics and economics in his line of questioning. He raised the issue of alienation in the society which produced an interesting exchange of views on whether or not there was actual discrimination or perceived discrimination in the society. He elicited from the Prime Minister a personal view about what she thought her legacy would be. Also she had no illusions about what the role of the Opposition should be and was frank about her expectations that they have to make her and her government look bad.
On the whole, CNMG CEO Ken Ali was able to pull off a successful event that would have given his network a ratings bonanza that night. He was obviously caught in the horns of a dilemma after the botched communication from the Debates Commission caused a fiasco. However, he was eventually able to turn that around in a way that brought viewers to C TV and listeners to 91.1 FM that might not otherwise have been the case on a Thursday night in July.
While Dr Rowley has adopted a position that only the Chamber of Commerce's Debates Commission has a monopoly to organise debates in this country, he missed a golden opportunity to have a debate with the Prime Minister on topic areas where the country would have been able to hear his contrasting view to that of the Prime Minister. It really did not matter if such a debate took place before or after nomination day and it really did not matter who organised it.
Anyway, the event has come and gone. The Prime Minister subjected herself to questioning before the national community. The country was able to hear the Prime Minister, in her own words, speaking about a range of issues that are pertinent to the general election. She came across as measured with a clear vision.
Our democracy is stronger for having had such an event and the country moves forward with the election campaign.