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South Pacific Independent News Network · 08-23-2020, 03:15 PM

Year 18 | 23 August 2020

THE SPINN
HITS AND MISSES OF THE PRIME MINISTERIAL DEBATE
James D. Halpert | Senior Editor

THE WEEK'S HIGHLIGHTS

• Islands, Panda, Prarie and Qaz are running to succeed Nakari as Prime Minister.

• The High Court has ordered the certification of the Local Council election as it considers an appeal to its recent ruling on voting restrictions.

• The Assembly is considering several bills on voting rights in response to the Court's ruling on voting restrictions.
The campaign to succeed Nakari as Prime Minister is now in full swing as three of the four candidates met in the Conference Hall on August 21 to participate in a debate moderated by former Minister of Regional Affairs Agalaesia. The debate had little promotion and was a last-minute affair, but those in attendance got a chance to see the candidates interact with each other for the first -and possibly only- time in the campaign.

Here are two hits and two misses from the debate.

HITS

• Prarie: I don't want this to be seen as an endorsement, because it isn't, but Prarie came out of the debate looking the most prime ministerial out of the three participating candidates. Prarie's campaign thread already is the most complete in terms of policy and their responses in the debate only reinforced the idea that they have done their homework this past few months: they have a clear idea of what they want to do and what needs to be done to get there. That doesn't mean that Prarie delivered a groundbreaking performance, because they didn't, but when sharing the stage with Qaz and Islands, the contrast was noticeable.

• Defender bloc: If there was one clear, albeit relatively silent, winner it was the idea of an interregional defender bloc. Much has been said about this idea in past debates, but this time all three candidates for Prime Minister who participated in the debate supported it. Perhaps the idea is complex and perhaps it won't see the light of day in what's left of the term, but there is a strong chance that some work will be done towards the goal of setting up a defender bloc.

MISSES

• The debate: If anyone was hoping to get a better idea of where each candidate stands on policy and how they plan to run a Cabinet that is already halfway through its term, they were surely left disappointed. Not only was the debate lacking in detailed policy exchanges, but the format was chaotic and difficult to follow. Future debates should give each candidate time to offer detailed answers and avoid the end of the debate, where a batch of questions was unceremoniously dumped on the candidates to answer as they saw fit. While the candidates should've been better prepared to share their policies and ideas, the format of the debate didn't help either.

• Qaz and Islands: Qaz's campaign thread is light on policy and Islands is yet to post a campaign thread; the debate was a perfect opportunity for both to position themselves as a clear alternative to Prarie, but that pivotal moment never came. Sure, both answered questions, but they didn't offer any unique policy proposals. Qaz repeated the claim that they want to live up to "Nakari's legacy" without actually explaining what that means, while Islands offered limited answers and was rather easy to miss compared to the participation of the other two candidates. They aren't terrible candidates but, like I said above, the contrast with Prarie was noticeable.

The South Pacific Independent News Network (SPINN) is an independent news organisation established in 2003 with the goal of providing good, insightful and timely commentary on regional events for the citizens of the South Pacific. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board. Content is published via pseudonyms. The SPINN is not associated with the Government of the South Pacific.

(This post was last modified: 08-23-2020, 04:33 PM by South Pacific Independent News Network.)