Our View: Nothing new from presidential debate

THE FIRST of the scheduled television debates of the three main presidential candidates did not receive very good reviews in yesterday’s newspapers and on the radio shows. This was also the sentiment of the candidates and the four journalists asking the questions, at the end of the show.
The general feeling was that the format, agreed beforehand by all parties, did not work as it was too rigid. The studio microphone switched off as soon as the allotted time for a question and an answer ran out, preventing participants from completing their arguments; there was no thematic unity to the questions as each journalist was free to ask whatever he or she wanted changing subject for every candidate.
In short, there was not much debate as a candidate did not have the opportunity to respond directly to an accusation made by a rival. Direct confrontation makes for better television, but there is always the danger of things getting out of control, without some structure and time limits. To be fair, setting time limits for answers was correct given that most politicians never know when to stop talking; the time limit forced them to be more concise and precise, if not necessarily more sincere.
Monday night’s debate dealt exclusively with the economy, but nothing was said that the candidates had not said before. Giorgos Lillikas was the only one to take an anti-memorandum stance, even though he was far from convincing when it came to explaining how the banks and the state would survive without a bailout. Stavros Malas pledged he would not sign a second memorandum, which was a bit silly considering the first had not been signed yet. Nicos Anastasiades made issue about his good relations with EU leaders, insisting that this would help us improve the terms of the memorandum.
In short, we did not really learn anything new about the candidates’ plans for our ailing economy, apart from the fact that they would all oppose the privatisation of the semi-governmental organisations – Anastasiades conceded that he would agree to shares being sold as long as the state remained the majority shareholder. But why do journalists consider the privatisation of SGOs such an important issue, and keep bringing it up during the debate? We would really like to know who, apart from the overpaid, underworked employees of these inefficient and overstaffed organisations cares about their ownership status?
In the end it was not so much the format that was to blame for the dullness of the debate but the fact that the candidates’ only concern was not to alienate any voters, by talking about the extremely difficult year ahead.