Election debate crashes, both parties blamed

As an expression of hope and faith it was an effort that should have earned SPEAR and the Chamber of Commerce a medal of honor. As a matter if realpolitik it turned out that the skeptics were right. After nine months of effort the two N.G.O.s will be throwing in the towel when it comes to organizing a debate between the two main political parties. According to SPEAR’s Dylan Vernon and B.C.C.I.’s Kevin Hererra, speaking at a press conference this afternoon, neither the U.D.P. nor P.U.P. could in the end sign off on final details of the N.G.O. proposal. For the U.D.P. the deal breaker seems to be the decision to hold only one prime ministerial debate instead of a series, which included the deputies and a panel of other candidates, a proposal the N.G.O.s had originally suggested but later modified. For the P.U.P.s it was some relatively minor points that made them back off: their insistence that the National Business Council be removed as one of the eight organizations to ask questions, and that the decision of which candidate gets the last word be determined by a coin toss instead of having it given automatically to Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel. In the final analysis each party had its own paramount reasons for dodging the debate. The U.D.P. feels that Dean Barrow is its best debater and the present format does not allow him to appear. As for the P.U.P., they feel that at this point they don’t really need the debate, as the campaign is rolling along just fine as it is. While spokesmen for both parties told News Five that they still want the debate to take place, and the organizers have said they will leave the door open until Monday, the chances of the event coming off are about as likely as the P.D.P. and N.A.B.R. forming the next government of Belize.