JAMAICA DEBATES COMMISSION PLEASED WITH FIRST DEBATE

Kingston. August 24, 2025. The Jamaica Debates Commission, JDC, has expressed satisfaction with the first debate in the 2025 General Election series. The debate, staged at the Creative Production and Training Centre in Kingston, was focussed on Social Issues, and featured three-person teams from the JLP and the PNP.

The Social Issues Debate saw nineteen (19) main questions being posed to the teams by three questioners comprising journalists Natalie Campbell of Irie FM and Romardo Lyons of Television Jamaica.

The third questioner, Amoy Harriot of CVM Television posed eight (8) of the queries taken from social media platforms. There were also two (2) follow-up questions from the journalists as they sought clarification on answers given, while each team was also permitted to pose a question to their opponents. In sum, twenty-two (22) questions were posed. Even though the debaters mostly used the maximum time allowed for answers, rebuttals, questions and closing comments, there were 2 more rounds of questions, answers and responses compared to the average. This is a 10% increase. As such, the objective of getting more questions and answers by the removal of the opening statements was achieved.

Questions relating to education dominated the debates, followed by those on matters relating to health. The questions were wide-ranging, including issues around housing, entertainment, the environment, beach access, public sector salary increases, Data Protection and Privacy, regulation of working conditions in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, regulating funeral homes, among others.

The moderator of the debate was Janella Precius of TVJ.

Chairman of the Commission, Brian Schmidt said, “the JDC is looking forward to the presentation of the remaining debates. These are The Economy on Tuesday, August 26 and The Leaders, Thursday August 28. Both debates will begin at 9pm and can be accessed by local TV and radio as well as in the digital space. We were also pleased that we enjoyed a very high level of public engagement and continued to receive questions from the public after the debate. The public is invited to send their questions by DM @jamaicadebates.”

The JDC additionally noted that the organization had, beginning in May, been engaging with the deaf and hearing-impaired community through various bodies to secure interpreter services. This effort lasted up to less than four hours before the debate, without success. The JDC remains committed to providing sign language interpretation for future debates and will continue to use our best efforts to secure an acceptable arrangement.

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