CANDIDATE FORUMS THE NEXT BEST THING TO REAL POLITICAL DEBATES

Billed as forums, the Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce’s 2025 series of question-and-answer engagements with candidates for the April 30th election is again proving its necessity.

It’s an opportunity to have candidates from across the political spectrum jointly address issues confronting Cayman.

While not exactly a debate with an exchange or scrutiny of ideas and policies -  that’s reserved for the final session with the leaders, these question-and-answer(Q-and-A) sessions nonetheless remove the candidates from their controlled comfort zone of managed campaigns designed with one goal in mind; to present them in the best light.

The opportunity does exist in the forums themselves for shrewd candidates who know how to ‘read the room’ to capitalise on the responses of their opponents by supporting or challenging their positions or responses to their advantage.

It’s strategic. Who knows how coalition talks might pan out should it come down to that to form the next government?

These forums, while providing an opportunity to assess candidates, are only one element in the list of categories on which candidates are assessed by voters in order to make that important decision on Polling Day.

Elections are not won or lost on how a candidate performs in a forum - barring some spectacularly massive and unexpected development, which in that moment, shifts the public perception one way or another.

But it’s an important political barometer to test how electable candidates are.

It’s therefore revealing, away from the paraphernalia and accoutrements of a party or individual campaign promotion, to hear the candidates on the same panel giving their views on issues raised in the questions.

The series will culminate with what’s billed as a ‘leaders debate’ on April 9th. That event is expected to more reflect the cut and thrust of real parliamentary debate. And that reflects the question: Do political panel discussion forums, no matter how well-intentioned, actually prepare candidates for parliamentary debate, and by extension give the electorate an insight of what to expect?

Further, the planned April 9th ‘leaders debate’ in and of itself poses several pertinent questions.

One is this: Who exactly will be the ‘leader’ representing and defending the record of the current United People’s Movement(UPM) government - and its PACT predecessor? All of its Cabinet ministers are running with other parties, including the main parliamentary opposition PPM party, or as independents?

In this most unique of political situations, the implications are certain to become increasingly evident as the forums roll on.