JLP, PNP and Jamaica Debates Commission Decide Dates for Three Political Debates

Kingston. Jamaica. August 15, 2020. The Jamaica Debates Commission, JDC on Saturdayconfirmed that the representatives of the Jamaica Labour Party, JLP and the People’s National Party, PNP will debate each other three times starting on Tuesday, August 25 with a team debate on social issues in the country. The second debate on Finance issues will be staged on Thursday August 27 and the third debate between the party leaders will be staged on Saturday August 29, 2020. All three debates will be 90-minutes in duration and will commence on radio, television and online at 9.00PM.The PNP’s debaters, based on a coin toss on Saturday, will deliver the first of the opening statements in all three debates and the JLP’s representatives will deliver the final of theclosing statements in all three debates.Those determinations were made by the parties’ representatives and the JDC based onthe rules governing the coin toss. Olivia “Babsy” Grange and Rudyard “Ruddy” Spencerre presented the JLP in Saturday’s proceedings, while Colin Campbell represented the PNP. The representatives also determined which side of the stage at the Studios of the Creative Production and Training Centre, CPTC, they will use. The JLP team will for all the debatesbe on the right of the stage and the PNP’s representatives will be on the left. The Commission has advised that this year due to the COVID-19 restrictions, there will notbe a studio audience for the debates though each side will have a team of three advisors.The Commission will announce the list of debaters, hosts and questioners closer to thedebates. It has also been determined that there will be two journalists as questioners foreach debate and in each round of questions by the journalists there will be a third question taken from social media queries taken from the public on the night. This is the 7th round of debates being staged by the JDC, which has been in operation and staging debates for almost twenty years. The Commission is a legal partnership between the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, JCC and the Media Association Jamaica Limited, MAJ.

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