The Jamaica Debates Commission thanks the media, civil society groups, political parties and other members of the public for their on-going interest and enquiries about the status of National Political Debates for 2011/2012.  Two and a half weeks ago, on October 31, 2011, the Commission gave a comprehensive update to the public on our plans, intentions and our effort.

Today, we provide you with a further update:

1. The JDC position remains that every effort must be made to afford the Jamaican electorate the benefit of understanding the issues in the elections, through the vehicle of national political debates by the parties seeking to govern our country.
2.  The JDC is of the view that there should be (1) A Leadership Debate, (2) A Finance Debate (our preference is that it be focused on Accelerating Economic Growth, (3) A Social Issues Debate and/or (4) a “Youth Agenda/Issues” Debate.  Our view is that if time constraints create a difficulty, then at least two debates should be held.
3. There remains an agreement in principle stated to the JDC by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP) to participate in political debates before the next general elections.  To date however, the JDC does not have an agreement between the parties on the number of debates they will participate in; the formats of the debates they would participate in nor the subject areas they are prepared to debate on.
4. The JDC has developed formats for town hall debates, studio debates, one-on-one debates and team debates.  The Commission has also refined the formats to include subjective input from the public through direct questioning, questions from a panel of journalists, questions from audience members and questions from new or social media.
5. Further, the JDC has met with News Editors from most media houses and has received their input into potential moderators and questioners for the debates.  The Commission has identified nine journalists and three moderators it would invite to participate in three debates.
6. The Commission has secured over $5M in sponsorship support so far and has good prospects to secure the just under $20M targeted to stage the debates and related activities.

At this stage, the Commission is in a heightened phase of planning and executing its activities to stage the debates and would be ready to put on the first debate in two to three weeks of the signing of an agreement by the political parties.

Our most worrying component of the debates’ preparation at this stage is the absence of a firm agreement on the three key components by the political parties.

Even as the Commission remains engaged and committed to trying our utmost to secure their FULL agreement, we publicly encourage both the JLP and the PNP to be fully aware of the high public expectation here in Jamaica and in our Diaspora communities for their full participation in these debates.

The Commission is prepared to continue meeting with the parties’ representatives to work through concerns and issues that would allow them to make that full and final commitment to sign off on the number of debates, their formats and the areas to be debated.