Sunday, February 10, 2013

40m people to follow Kenya’s first TV presidential debate presidential debate


The stage where the much awaited presidential debate will be taking place on February 9, 2013 at the Brooke House school international. Photo/JENNIFER MUIRURI
By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com  ( email the author)

Posted  Sunday, February 10  2013 at  00:30
In Summary
  • Two-hour Debate 2013 starts at 7.30 pm during which candidates for State House will discuss their policies on health, education, security among other topics
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On Monday evening Kenyans will be glued to their television sets, radios and computers to watch presidential candidates discuss policy issues about health, education and national security.
The presidential debate, which kicks off at 7.30pm, will be the first in the 50 years of the country’s independence. Eight television stations and 34 radio stations with national coverage will broadcast live the event that is being organised by Kenya’s major media houses.
The global Internet giant, Google, will stream the debate athttp://www.youtube.com/user/electionskenya.
Presidential debates are used in established democracies to test the ability of candidates to promote and defend their platforms.
It is also the time to get the candidates to meet face-to-face and address each other before a controlled audience where distractions like cheers, boos, hisses and/or applause are prohibited.
For the candidates themselves, the debates offer an unparalleled opportunity for free publicity to sell their respective positions to the voters.
“We want to use the media to help the electorate make more informed decisions in the elections,” said Mr Francis Munywoki, the director of operations for the team that is organising the two debates. The second will be on February 25.
Appearing before a selected audience at Brookhouse School in Nairobi, the presidential candidates will be under pressure to impress not only the 200 people before them but also the millions tuned in.
Mr Munywoki says more than 40 million people worldwide will be following the debate on radio, TV and online.
“In Kenya alone, the reach of TV and radio is about 21 million people. We’re also giving the feed to the BBC, Reuters, CNN and Al Jazeera. We estimate about 40 million people worldwide will follow the debate,” Mr Munywoki told the Sunday Nation
The organisers have banned campaign materials and all political party signs from the venue.
Mr Emman Omari, a veteran political journalist who is on the debate research team, told theSunday Nation that the debates would help the voters “gauge whose policies should be believed”.
“The public will know who has the brains and the conviction regarding their policies, and who doesn’t have the brains,” said Mr Omari.
Under the US model, the candidates for the Republican and the Democratic parties generally respond to questions from a moderator. In 2012, of a list of 28 candidates seeking the presidency, just Republican Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, a Democrat, met in three separate 90-minute debates.
In Kenya, the organisers picked six candidates from a field of eight to discuss and defend their policies and positions in two live debates. The two front-runners in the race to State House, according to the opinion polls, are Prime Minister Raila Odinga and DPM Uhuru Kenyatta.
Conditioning Kenyans
The choice of six has rattled those who were left out, and presidential candidate Mohammed Abduba Dida of the Alliance for Real Change party has accused the team of deliberately trying to “condition Kenyans to vote in a certain way and for certain people”.
“Many people wanted to be in the race. Only eight qualified. I asked why I was left out of the debate, and I was told that I was late. The question is, we all submitted our papers to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and were cleared at around the same time. Why were they picked yet I was left out?” asked Mr Dida.
Mr Paul Muite, the Safina party candidate, will also not participate in the debate.
Other candidates who will participate are Narc-Kenya’s Martha Karua, Eagle Coalition’s candidate Peter Kenneth, Restore and Build Kenya’s James ole Kiyiapi and Amani Coalition’s candidate Musalia Mudavadi.
Twelve minutes
With just 90 minutes to share with the debate moderators, the six candidates might end up with just 12 minutes in which to sell their policies, woo more voters, and convince their core supporters that they are in the right company.
“The politicians will have to tell the audience how they have been a success in the past and how they will deliver the future. They should not look at it as just another publicity opportunity. They must come prepared with witty one-liners laced with rational thinking, and those aimed at creating an emotional connection,” said Mr Dismas Mokua, a political communications expert who has advised presidential campaigns in the past, and who is also engaged in the current campaigns.
But he said the candidates should not be overly concerned about how they perform in the debate. He argued that most voters made a decision to back their particular candidates long before they even read the party manifestos or even before they heard the promises being made during campaigns.
Core support
“Presidential debates make sense in a mature country where people vote based on issues. In a country like Kenya, Mr Odinga or Mr Kenyatta are unlikely to lose their core support based on how they perform in the debate,” he said.
The closest that Kenyans have come to a political campaign debate was when Nairobi aspirants for governor Ferdinand Waititu of The National Alliance (TNA), and Evans Kidero of Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), faced off on national television.
Those who participate in the debate have to be sober, respectful, and serious, and they also have to look convincing and sincere.
Some analysts of the US debates said President Obama lost the first one because he underestimated his opponent and was also patronising. His campaign managers later said Mr Obama had not taken debate preparations seriously.
According to Dr Timothy Stanley, a US historian who wrote extensively about the US presidential debates, Mr Romney won because Mr Obama “insulted, patronised and mocked his opponent rather than put across a constructive argument”.
“His performance was rude and unpresidential,” Dr Stanley wrote in his summary of the debate in The Telegraph. Mr Mokua agreed with that assessment.
Know solutions
“All that the candidates need to do is to create an emotional connection about their policies. That makes it convincing. They have to show that they understand the problems, they know the solutions, and they are able and willing, if given a chance, to solve those problems,” said Mr Mokua.
NTV’s Linus Kaikai and Citizen TV’s Julie Gichuru will moderate the first debate while Joe Ageyo of KTN and Uduak Amimo of Citizen TV will oversee the second debate.
The final part of the debate, which will run for 30 minutes, will involve an expert analysis of the debate and the issues arising from each of the candidate’s arguments.

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