Tuesday Sep 17, 2024
Tuesday Sep 17, 2024
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It’s a win-win situation to both candidateand voter. The outcome of such an enterprise is enhanced information to the voterand an audience to the candidate, not to mention a glimmer of hope for Sri Lanka’s chequered democracy. A presidential debate between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and challenger Maithripala Sirisena will be just what the doctor ordered as issues at stake are numerous. Democracy, good governance, the 17th Amendment, minority rights are all good topics.
Game changer
Presidential debates are an integral part of most Western democracies. Candidates get a great opportunity and a captive opportunity to articulate their vision and policy for the country. The whole debate is keenly followed by millions of voters over various media. This will be a 
trendsetter and a game changer.
Presidential debates are eminently consequential; voters in democracies pay close attention to such an event especially when the socio-economic dynamics are at stake. For anevolving democracy like Sri Lanka, it can really be a game changer.
Voters learn new information and are likely to change their minds about candidates. A debate facilitates a cognitive process in the minds of voters and this can precipitate changes in terms prejudices and misconceptions. It can also engender a renewed perspective due to the dynamic character of debates.
Debates attract a cross-section of viewers who may or may not have an abiding interest in politics yet in a country like Sri Lanka where politics is quite entrenched anyone and everyone has an opinion on an issue.The impact of debates can have a profound impact if judiciously structured. The organisers should plan it in such a way that the process has a natural flow and able to elicit optimum responses.
Advantages
The main function ofa debate is to provide voters an exclusive opportunity to see candidates respond to a myriad of core issues in a spontaneous and extemporaneous way.The best analogy of this isa job interview where questions are hurled at you and you are supposed to come up with smart, sensible and credible answers.Televised debates between candidates may not be perfect vehicles yet compared with other forms of political communication they offer advantages found nowhere else.
First, they are the only event during a presidential campaign at which the two candidates appear simultaneously, giving voters a unique opportunity for comparison. Second overly choreographed candidates can go off-scrip. Third, their dramatic nature ensures that tens of millions of people will tune in. In an era of media explosion debates retain the power to generate a collective national experience, one built on the future of the country.
Critics and cynics could always say that they are contrived and superficial, that they emphasise style over substance. Let’s remind them that the validity and efficacy will always be with the people and more precisely the intelligentsia.
A presidential debate also affords the opportunity to see candidates side by side and compare them on the same subjects. Second, debates provide a succinct summary of candidates’ positions by the candidates themselves in their entirety – no edit, no voiceovers, no visuals.
Third, debates provide a view into a candidates’ personality and character through how they respond to a high-risk situation, attacks and 
unexpected questions. How they address the opponent and voters also projects something about their character. Fourth, undecided and new voters find them most useful and can help them make a choice; informed voters may not learn much new, but debates reinforce their choices and make them more likely to vote.
Customary
During presidential elections in the United States, it has become customary for the main candidates (almost always the candidates of the two largest parties, currently the Democratic Party and the Republican Party) to engage in a debate. The topics discussed in the debate are often the most controversial issues of the time, and arguably elections have been nearly decided by these debates (e.g., Nixon vs. Kennedy).
Presidential debates are held late in the election cycle, after the political parties have nominated their candidates. The candidates meet in a large hall, often at a university, before an audience of citizens. The formats of the debates have varied, with questions sometimes posed from one or more journalist moderators and in other cases members of the audience.
In the final debate between Obama and Romney in 2012 the focus was on foreign policy, but both Romney and Obama used their time to talk about other issues important to voters: jobs, the economy and the budget. They talked about the auto bailout, school class sizes and Romney’s tax plan.
Let’s sincerely hope that the debate between Mahinda and Maithri becomes a reality and the voters are able to meaningfully digest the contents andmake a well-informed decision.
(The writer holds a MBA First Class Honours, Major in Marketing – VM University India and runs a small business enterprise in Toronto, Canada. He could be reached via [email protected].)
