Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness and the per­son seek­ing his job, Mark Gold­ing, will face each oth­er in a na­tion­al de­bate on Au­gust 28, the Ja­maica De­bates Com­mis­sion (JDC) an­nounced on Tues­day.

JDC chair­man, Bri­an Schmidt, told a news con­fer­ence that there will be a group for­mat for the first time in the 23-year his­to­ry of the de­bates or­gan­ised by the Com­mis­sion ahead of the Sep­tem­ber 3 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the JDC, the de­bates will be held on Au­gust  23, Au­gust 26 and on Au­gust 28.

The first de­bate on Sat­ur­day will be on so­cial is­sues and will bring Damion Craw­ford, Ray­mond Pryce and Sophia Fras­er-Binns of the main op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Par­ty (PNP) against gov­ern­ment min­is­ters Pear­nel Charles Jr, Kam­i­na John­son-Smith and Matthew Samu­da rep­re­sent­ing the rul­ing Ja­maica Labour Par­ty (JLP).

The sec­ond de­bate on the econ­o­my will see the PNP be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ju­lian Robin­son, Pe­ter Bunting and Kisha An­der­son, while the JLP will be rep­re­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Fay­val Williams, Dana Mor­ris Dixon and Health Min­is­ter, Dr Christo­pher Tufton.

The JDC al­so an­nounced a change in the for­mat of the de­bates, with the open­ing state­ments to be aban­doned in favour of more ques­tions from the pan­el­lists.

This year, the first de­bate will be mod­er­at­ed by Janel­la Pre­cius, with ques­tions com­ing from Na­tal­ie Camp­bell and Ro­mar­do Lyons, while the sec­ond will be mod­er­at­ed by George Davis, with ques­tions from Dashan Hen­dricks and An­drea Chisholm.

The lead­er­ship de­bate will be mod­er­at­ed by Archibald Gor­don, with ques­tions from Dionne Jack­son Miller and Gio­van­ni Den­nis.

Ques­tions will al­so be tak­en from so­cial me­dia.

On Mon­day, the Elec­toral Of­fice of Ja­maica (EOJ) said 189 can­di­dates, in­clud­ing 53 women, have been nom­i­nat­ed to con­test the Sep­tem­ber 3 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the EOJ, the two ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties are con­test­ing all 63 seats at stake in the elec­tions.

The Ja­maica Pro­gres­sive Par­ty (JPP) has en­tered can­di­dates in 47 con­stituen­cies, while sev­en nom­i­nees will rep­re­sent the Unit­ed In­de­pen­dents’ Con­gress (UIC).

The EOJ said that nine can­di­dates will run as in­de­pen­dents across con­stituen­cies in St Thomas, St James, Hanover, West­more­land, St Cather­ine, and St An­drew.

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, Aug 19, CMC

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