Election debate officially dead

The issue of a prime ministerial debate has finally and officially been laid to rest. A release this afternoon from SPEAR and the Chamber of Commerce announces that after months of exasperating attempts they have withdrawn their invitation to the P.U.P. and U.D.P. and will cease all efforts to organize this or any debates for the upcoming election. The N.G.O. statement was preceded by a lengthy release from the U.D.P. which essentially attributed some of the failure to P.U.P. intransigence and double dealing by the organizers, but placed the lion’s share of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the press: more specifically a shadowing of the “media association” which, according to the U.D.P. insisted upon being included in the debate as a “non-negotiable demand”. SPEAR and the Chamber have pledged to tell the full grim history of the debate fiasco in a report to be published later in the week.