THE ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) remains open to the possibility public political debates ahead of the May 11 General and Regional elections.“The PPP has always been open to debates,” said the party’s General Secretary, Clement Rohee, yesterday at the party’s weekly press conference, which was held at Freedom House.
At the last election, Guyana made a move in a similar direction, with the leaders of the political parties agreeing to public debates involving their presidential candidates.
Such debates, while they have been suggested in the past, have never been strongly insisted upon the major political players.
In 2011, the first debate was held at the University of Guyana, in the George Walcott Lecture Theatre and was organised by the Faculty of Social Sciences. Then, politicians had outlined the vision, programmes and policy differences of their political parties; presentations were made by the presidential candidates from the four major political parties contesting the elections – incumbent President, Donald Ramotar; Brigadier (rtd) David Granger of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU); Khemraj Ramjattan of the Alliance For Change (AFC); and Peter Persaud of The United Force (TUF).However, the event was marred by the disruptive behaviour of a rowdy crowd.
There were subsequent calls on the organisers of such events to put in place measures to prevent such a recurrence, which is not only counterproductive, but negates the value such debates are expected to generate.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, this was the only political debate that was hosted.